Did you know that in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, dentures were made from the teeth of executed criminals and dead soldiers? I just thought I would throw that fact out there.
As this is a genealogy blog, I will try to keep it on genealogy. My love of genealogy started with studying the family trees of the various royal families of Europe. My study and love of history came from making family trees of said families. In all this study, I discovered several things. First, intermarriage among the royal families was so commonplace as to be genetically criminal. Second, the desire to secure dynasties and empires resulted in some wildly inappropriate genetic alliances.
Finally, I discovered early on that the rulers of the various countries were seldom the same ethnicity as their subjects. This was particularly true during Queen Victoria's reign. Queen Victoria had nine children whom she married to most of the ruling houses of Europe. She was known as the grandmother of Europe. Her family tree just branches off into all kinds of areas. While Victoria was Queen of England her ethnicity was German, and she married her first cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which was a minor German principality.
And that last statement leads to this quote I found by Michael Crichton. "If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree." I thought this was an appropriate statement for not only historians but genealogists.
So this is my first blog. Genealogy is the study of families. It is the family stories we have heard and want to check. Sometimes, they are historically important, but more often than not they are about ordinary people and their day-to-day existence. And we just want to know more about them--who they were, their character and their cultural background.