Who Do You Think You Are?

Drake and I met for drinks last night. We've been sharing a rather large carafe of wine recently and I've been getting a bit tipsy--needing to wait a bit before hopping into my SUV for the ride home. I don't mind, though, this gives us more time together!

Last night we got on the topic of our ancestry. I never had an interest in this until my maternal grandmother died over a decade ago. My great grandmother came to the US through Ellis Island as a very young girl (traveling alone) under mysterious circumstances. My grandmother's cousin was the love and muse of a well-known author of their generation (although my grandmother called the author a "good-for-nothing, lazy drunk!").

As I've discovered more about my lineage, I am fascinated by the twists and turns the branches of my tree have taken. There is the side that goes back to hardscrabble and hard knocks. This is balanced by the other side that was well-educated and accomplished. Then there is a great-great grandfather who left his wife for a younger woman he was having an affair with. Shockingly scandalous for the day (and perhaps even for today?). I find that piece of juicy history quite fascinating, natch!

Drake also has some illustrious relatives in his past. However, no one fascinates me more than his mother. According to him, she was an awful human being. When he recounts stories of her horribleness, it helps me understand him much better--how he thinks, why he does what he does.

I have a fairly unique name and a Google or Yahoo! search brings up bits and pieces of my past, traveling all the way back to the early 90's! There are a few items out there I would prefer not to have connected with my name. You really do need to be careful how you link what you think are your more private email accounts with anything remotely public. I was fortunate to have someone point that out to me and I quickly took care of the issues. Well, most of them; unfortunately, one is still lingering.

I can't help but wonder how, with the continuing expansion of the Internet into everything we do, I will be remembered in years to come.