IT'S A REALLY SMALL WORLD

     I am breaking protocol already.  My plan is for this site to be family stories from as many Finchum/Baker family members as I can talk into participating.  I also want and will be posting about fact that I find on ancestry.com.  There are so many interesting and amazing discoveries to be revealed.  One of these discoveries is the reason for the slight and temporary change in plans.   

                       This is truly a SMALL WORLD we live in.

     I am a Finchum by marriage so anything that has happened outside the realm of that family really doesn’t pertain, except that this story is so interesting that I will most likely post it on this site and the site of the Parrish/Darrow site that my brother is composing. 

         This is an example of how amazing ancestry.com can be.  

    After my divorce, back in the 80's, I met and dated a man for many years named Gene Chipley.  After some years of not being in contact we reconnected and are great friends once again.  You may be thinking – so?  Because of our closeness and my attachment to his family, I began to do a little research into his family.  His mom, still alive and crazy active at the age of 92, was born Cleo W. Butcher on August 28, 1920.  Her mom’s maiden name was Darrow.  Oops, my mother’s maiden name was Darrow.  How, after all these years, do I not know this?  Gene said that he just didn’t know much about his Grandma Butcher because she had passed away when he was young.  

Can you see where this is going?  

      To date, I have made the search Chipley/Butcher/Darrow family back to the early 1600’s.  Not too bad.   I went to the work that my brother is doing on our family tree to see how far back he has made it, on the Darrow side, and he is about the same place.  It is confirmed – we are related. My first thought is that this is really cool.  We have a bond that neither of us knew about.  Then my brother said – “Ahh, kissing cousins”.  Can you say creepy?  

     Much to my relief, I have traced the connections to Christopher Darrow, born 1678, and Elizabeth Packer, born 1679.  They had a house full of kids of which two are Christopher, born in 1702, and Jedediah, born in 1721.  Christopher’s marriage and life comes forward and leads to the Butcher/Chipley family.  The Parrish/Darrow family traces back to Jedediah.  I am pleased and relieved to know that Gene’s family and mine, we related almost 300 years ago.  

Not feeling so creepy anymore.