Every Family Has One!

The one relative that nobody will talk about at holidays around the dinner table. No, “Whatever happened to him,” or “I wonder how she’s doing since that last time.”

My family had one, but hundreds of years ago. With my dad’s family emigrating from the UK, the genealogy actually traces back to the Normandy region of France. A Duke of France, to be exact. Except nobody talks about him and the time in which our family originated in France. It’s like that whole part of our family history didn’t exist. If you ask my dad where my family is from, he’ll always say hands-down “England.”

And you know what? The reasons are as scandalous as you might imagine! How cool is that?!

Apparently, Good ‘Ole Duke-Boy had been somewhat of a lesser-caliber character. A bit of a womanizer, we’ll say to put it nicely. In the olden days of yore (when was yore, anyways?) the Duke had run up so much debt in borrowing against his land, fiefs, basically any asset he held, while squandering it all away on the two downfalls that are as reliable as time and go back as far as the Old Testament: Women and Booze!

Now I see where I get it from!

Well, not the womanizing part, but the basic concept, I suppose. He-he!

So why does this all come up now?! Here’s why: up until recently my dad and his side of the family had thought that the entire clan emigrated at once, but apparently some had stayed back in England with nobody really knowing except my one great-aunt (my grandfather’s sister). And even then letters (yes, folks, snail-mail…and trans-continental even! *gasp*) were few and far between.

At some point last year, a woman from England got in touch with my dad, saying how she found a bunch of letters from my great-aunt in her mother’s closet. Her mother had just recently passed, and had never told her children of their relatives across the sea, and the daughter had come upon the letters while cleaning out her mother’s things. Pretty darn random, if you ask me. So, the communication was initiated and kept on for a good few months. As it turns out, I’ve had a cousin (like 3rd removed, or something crazy like that…who the hell knows how that all goes anyways) who is a career man in the Royal British Navy (oh, I love a uniform) who had been based in Virginia Beach for close to seven years…SEVEN YEARS I’ve had a long-lost relative living not even 10 hours away from me, and I never even knew it!

After careful planning, we were all able to meet in NYC when the folks from England were over here on ‘holiday’ (I just love how they say that), and my cousin from V.B. came up as well, and it was a crazy-ass reunion! Incredible! It was so much fun, getting to talk to someone for hours with that wonderful accent! I didn’t even care they were related.

Unfortunately, Navy-Cousin was being called back to the Mother Country in another couple of months. Drats! I had just found him, why did he have to leave?! Stupid Queen! But after he left, we stayed in touch through email as best we could, and still do.

Last week, he was actually in NYC visiting. I had lunch with him last Tuesday, and took off from work on Wednesday to tour him around Coney Island, and then off to Long Island to show him a bit of that and dinner with mom and dad. It was so great to see him again. He’s just so cool, with so many interesting stories about his work, the world and life in general. Plus, it’s a connection and tie to my family history that I never thought I would appreciate it until it was starring me back in the face.

So, France can keep the Duke-dom, or Duke-ship, or whatever the hell it’s called, because as far as I’m concerned, my family is from England! And now I have a great vacation spot with family! Oh yeah, that SO rocks!