Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Long Live the Herds

When I wrote about my father in my writing class last year, I posted my story on my blog and when on Facebook and posted a link to the blog.  These actions resulted in my distant cousin Carol Tanner, who I never heard of before, contacting me through my email address.

She told me about some of my genealogy on our common side of our families, the Herds.  She also promised to send me some additional materials and after several months a package arrived filled with photographs of ancestors, lists of various related family trees, newspaper clippings, records of land deeds, marriage certificates, military records, photos of head stones and old homesteads.  I felt almost overwhelmed with gratitude would got to such lengths to enrich the lives on two strangers, myself and my half-bother Clifford who also received this treasure trove of information about our heritage.

Although I have not completely waded through all the information, this past week end I found out that I am distant relative to Pocahontas, Henry Hudson (the explorer), John Randolph of colonial Virginia, the Bush family and President Obama.

There are stories of my great grandfather Lt. Col. Andrew Jackson Herd having a horse stolen from him by the James Gang and set out after them and recovered the horse.  One of my relatives hung around with Daniel Boone there is a copy of a letter he wrote to Boone about selling a horse to him. 

I can hardly wait to what else there is to discover.


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