The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 1998 by Richard W. Eastman and Ancestry, Inc. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - Black Sheep In The Family Do you have any ax-murderers, traitors, thieves or other notorious villains lurking in your family tree? I bet you do; almost everyone has one or more "black sheep" ancestors. And these scoundrels are what makes genealogy research so much fun! If you can find such a rascal in your ancestry, you may qualify for the International Black Sheep Society of Genealogists. Jeff Scism, of San Bernardino, Calif., formed the Internet group a year ago and launched its Web site in January. Starting with two dozen members, the society now has 125 members. The rules are simple: You must have someone in the family, preferably in your direct lines, who's "a dastardly, infamous individual of public knowledge and ill repute." Stuffed shirts with pure blue blood ancestry need not apply. I like this society already! Ideally, you should be able to claim descent from kidnappers, armed robbers, assassins, thieves who stole "any item of fame," members of infamous gangs, and anyone involved in witchcraft or among the FBI's "Most Wanted." "Weirdness counts," says Scism. He even has a catchall category for ancestors causing "extreme public embarrassment," such as Lady Godiva. "If you're doing genealogical research, and you find nothing but blase people, it's really boring and you're going to quit," Scism says. But "if you do this long enough, you will find you have a black sheep in your family that nobody talks about." Despite the passage of time, sometimes centuries, a few members don't want their full names linked to scoundrel relatives. So only their first names are listed on the Web site. Researching back to the 10th century, Janni Belgum of Calgary, Alberta, found a Norwegian earl nicknamed "Skull Splitter." A rather bloody Viking, she figures. Fast-forwarding several centuries, Dianna Fisher of Corvallis, Ore., acknowledges John Billington, whom she places on the Mayflower in 1620 as well as on the blacklist: the first colonist hanged for murder. In the "public embarrassment category, one member claims descent from James Durham. He was a preacher in Wells, Texas, in the late 1800s who tried to re-create Jesus' walk on water. To pull off a "miracle," Durham slipped a board just below the surface of a pond and left. While he was gone, two boys sawed the board almost in half. When Durham took his first step before a big crowd, the board broke and he got dunked. Take a look at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~blksheep/index.html and make sure your SoundBlaster card is hooked up. ============================================================== Paula Kelley Ward San Antonio, Texas pward@express-news.net