Am I a Cornbread Empire Heiress?

Over a year ago, the hubs and I decided to get our DNA tested through 23 and Me. For about $100, you can get a basic ancestral report. For additional fees, you can also get genetic screenings for disease, abnormalities and wellness. With the thought to continue to live in ignorant bliss forgoing the later, we provided an uncomfortable amount a spit in a little vial and sent it off for testing.

Upon return and without much surprise, I found out that I'm vastly European, 99.1% to be exact and about 66.4% of that is British/Irish. With the addition of .9% Sub-Saharan Africa which reflects the deep history of humans, the most surprising of my genetic makeup is a small but non-negligible representation of Ashkenazic Jew.

For this type of genetic testing, I could only find out my complete ancestral makeup but not which parent provided what ancestral material. For my husband, he received a maternal and paternal breakdown because he has both an X and a Y chromosome. For me to receive the same type of information, my father or a brother would have to complete the same test.

Without a brother and my father already deceased, that's not an option and that fact coupled with the knowledge that I didn't know a lot about my father's family past my grandparents bothered me. So, I decided to add crafting a family tree for my father's side of the family to my 30 Before 30 adventure.

Downtown Branch of the Chattanooga Public Library

Thanks to a little help from my cousin Angie and a lot of help from the Chattanooga Public Library's Genealogy Department on the 3rd floor of the Downtown Branch, I was able to piece together a family tree with family members dating back to 1623 and 10 generations back on my father's father side and to 1776 and 7 generations for my father's mother side.

While I won't provide an entire copy of my family tree, here are some of the tips and parameters of my search: 

• I only focused on my grandparents, their parents, etc. Trying to cipher all the children and their histories would take me months. 
• Unfortunately, there was much more information about the men in my lineage than the women. I even found female ancestors with only a first name and without even basic information concerning dates of birth or death. The patriarchal society shows as you dig deeper and further. 
• If you're a resident of the City of Chattanooga, go to the library and you can use Ancestory.com and lots of other genealogical resources for free. If you're just a Hamilton County resident, you'll have to pay an annual fee of $50. But if you're not utilizing all the awesome things the library provides for our community, you're missing out. Here are the steps to acquire a library card. 
• Ancestors who were affluent will have more information about them available. 
• When searching for ancestors, make sure you take note of potential issues like nicknames, shortening of names (i.e. Stephen to Steve) and discrepancies in dates. Using a date range versus a hard date and Boolean operators and truncation can pull lots of relevant information. 

  

  My highly scientific research methodolofy.

  
  

  
  

  
  

• Hallelujah for the U.S. Census or we would know very little about the normal, everyday people of the past. 

What did I find? I hope I have the longevity of some of my ancestors with two 100+ grandmothers both named Nancy curiously enough and four others making it until their 90's. My ancestors, like most of yours probably, had a lot of children. Five sets of grandparents reached the double digits with two reaching 15 and 16 children over their life span. Here are some of the more interesting first names in my family tree: Pacify, Morning, Narcissus, Alcy, Cebery, Parley and Drewry.

And per my potential Cornbread Empire, alas, it's not true. I do have a Martha White in the family, but she was born about 269 years before the Martha who inspired Martha White Cornbread products.

Get out there and starting digging into your family's background friends! Maybe you'll find an interesting character or some stories to share with your family that's still here.

Check out my Great x 5 Grandfather Fielding Lewis. He looks like a happy guy huh?

Fielding was a well to do landowner in Tazewell, TN. Born in 1767, he had 16 children with wife Mary.