Every now and then, you stumble across an interesting title, which leads to an interesting book, which leads to even more interesting discoveries. While I was looking for some other books for research, I saw the title “Maternal Ancestry” and the word “Washington” attached to it. The first thing I thought of was not our first president, however, but the state. Curious as to how a state might have a maternal ancestry, I pulled out the book to realize my mistake (it was early). Titled “The Maternal Ancestry and nearest kin of Washington. A monograph,” this book was published in 1885 by George Washington Ball.
Many old family trees focused on paternal ancestry, but with someone as popular as Washington, it wouldn’t have been unusual for a maternal ancestry as well. However, this book comes with a bunch of notes! Not only did the owner underline many names, and add a bunch of footnotes in the margins, doubtless to do more research or to indicate that they knew of this person, they actually added on to the fold-out family tree and corrected some of the names.
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By Morgan Ford