Hi Cousin!

Tennessee Ernie Ford called everyone cousin when he played
Cousin Ernie on the I Love Lucy show in 1955..
Why?
Was he just trying to promote his cornseed hick persona?
Or was there some truth in his assertion of us all being cousins?

I say he was right.
We are all cousins, especially here in the USA.

With all the divisiveness going on these days, we should consider
who our cousins are. And even though we oft times disagree with
their beliefs and or actions, should have more loving feelings for our family.

As summer 2020, I learned that I have 9 cousins who are part Negro.
They include:

Rosa Parks ( a civil rights heroine)
14th Cousin
Several lines of connections to Cassius Marcellus Clay
aka Muhammad Ali. (A famous Boxer.)
Connection and dates I learned about it.
13th Cousin 1 time removed
13th Cousin 426/2020/5/26/19
8th Cousin 1 time removed 3/22/2020
11th Cousin 2 times removed 2/10/2020
15th Cousin 9/8/2019
13th Cousin 2 times removed 7/12/19

Jackie Robinson 12th Cousin 1 time removed 3/31/19
13th Cousin 1 time removed 5/26/19
(He was a famous baseball player and I loved baseball as a boy.)

Araminta Harriet Ross Tubman (a Civil War period abolitionist )
11th Cousin 4 times removed
(from a Charles Morton 1472-1531 abd Maud Dallison 1483) 10/13/18

Araminta Harriet Ross Tubman 12th Cousin 3 times removed 7/22/18

Martin Luther King 10th Cousin 1 time removed 8/29/18
Martin Luther King, Jr. 9th Cousin 7/5/2020

Jimi Hendrix 12th Cousin 1 time removed 7/5/20
James Marshall Hendrix 9th Cousin 2 times removed 4/15/17

Barack Obama 9th Cousin 1 time 7/5/20
Barack Obama 11th Cousin 2 times removed 4/26/20

George Washington Carver  14th Cousin 1 time removed

on August 30th 2020 I learned of more negro connections:

(3 are listed above but here show the common ancestor)

Maya Angelou 12th Cousin 2 times removed ▼ David Barclay
Aretha Franklin 12th Cousin 2 times removed ▼ John La Zouche
Muhammad Ali 14th Cousin ▼ Robert Newman
Elijah Able 9th Cousin 5 times removed ▼ Mary Brereton
Nat King Cole 11th Cousin 2 times removed ▼ Robert Welles
Barack Obama 9th Cousin 1 time removed ▼ Mareen Duvall
Charles R. Drew 6th Cousin 3 times removed ▼ Benjamin Armstrong
Jimi Hendrix 12th Cousin 1 time removed ▼ Nicholas Water
Langston Hughes 9th Cousin 2 times removed ▼ Thomas Burgess
Henrietta Lacks 13th Cousin ▼ Thomas Tobias II Chandler
Jessie Owens 13th Cousin 1 time removed ▼ William Glover Cranfield

Then there is Wilton Norman Chamberlain 14th cousin 1 time removed.

That’s sixteen cousins with some African heritage and more not listed here, making 55 in all.

The song “Abraham, Martin, and John” means more now that I know all three of them were cousins of mine.

(A Lincoln 5th,  MLK 9th & 10th, JfK 14th)

When I lived in Austria in 1969 to 1971, people asked me if I was an American Indian, Mongolian, Yugoslavian.

“Don’t think so,” i told them.

Well I have direct line indigenous Americans ancestors:

Montauk, Mohawk, Powhatan
-Wyandance Grand Sachem of the Montauk Tribe Wise Speaker Tribe
11th Great Grandfather ( his wife was a Mohawk of the Iroquois
Confederation)( & Pequots of the Connecticut area)
There is much confusion about:
-Matoaka ‘Pocahontas’ Powhatan 2nd Cousin 9 times removed 11/14/18
10th Great Aunt 11/29/18 & 3/16/19
11th Great Aunt 1/17/17
2nd Cousin 9 times removed 2/17/19
1st Cousin 13 times removed
Shows chief Tucker as the common ancestor 2/10/20
2nd Cousin 12 times removed
show as Chief Tucker’s father the connection Ensenore
Algonkian Chief Powhattan 3/7/20
But we are definitely related.

I have many Hebrew lines:
10 from Judah,
many from Ephraim, and
some from Manasseh

And Mongolian?

There’s the Hun line
Pecks to Sevielles to Huns from Mongolia-China

The Visigoths of Spain from Mongolia-China/Ukraine area, Libya, Egypt,

And the Yugoslavian look?

Well the Huns invaded the Aegean Sea countries that made up what was Yugoslavia.

And other ancestors were in Italy, then Egypt, then Dardania and Turkey and back to Egypt and other parts of the middle east.

Dardania was in the area where Yugoslavia was.

They saw all that in my face.

I’ve ancestors nearly from every nation in Europe (Scandinavia to Italy,
Ireland to the East, Turkey and on south and eastward.

So if that many national origins plus many more makes up my cousins
and my ancestry, what are you talking about when you talk about
race being a division?
Ernie Ford was right, we are all cousins.

September update:

Okay let’s name different people.
Should we add a hyphen?
What’s wrong with that?
Nothing if used correctly.
But the following two are largely misused.
Native-American
African-American
An indigenous inhabitant of a country isn’t anymore a native than any other person born in that country,
A person born in Africa who then immigrates to America is an African American.
A person with ancestors from Africa, who was born in America, is an American.
End of story.
Question?
When was the last time you heard the phrase:
European-American?
That’s right!
Never!
I asked a friend about this today.  He’d never heard the term European American.
He said he was born here and his parents and grandparents  making him what? A Native American,
a “Heinz 57”, or in other words “An American.  He is a relative of Pocahantas Powhatan, has Icelandic, and many European ancestors.  His wife is of Irish, French, Eskimo  decent making her a what? an American.

PS.

If you want to see how closely you and I  are related, then join Family Search.

It’s free!

https://www.familysearch.org/en/

Then join Relative Finder, free too.

 

https://relativefinder.org/#/main

You sign in with your Family Search account.

Here’s a link to my family group:

Password: 333333

Invite Url:

And then see if we have a close connection.
Enjoy.
Jay Beacham
postscript:
Dr. Nell Irvin Painter
Professor of American History at Princeton University said,  “Race is an idea not a fact.”

3 Comments »