Cousin Ben

A few years back at a family gathering, a relative from Arkansas on my mother's side told me that we were related to Benjamin Franklin. I didn't really buy it at the time (I always thought my family was made up of 19th or early 20th century immigrants). But I'll be darned, looks like it checks out, and that the Clayworth side has been living in this part of the world for about 350 or so years. A relative, Mary Rogers, emailed some genealogical research on to my brother, and it looks like Franklin was a cousin of mine — he's not a direct anscestor, but there's a direct line from Franklin's mother, Abiah Lee Folger, to my mom, Barbara Clayworth. This stuff is really interesting to me. It's also kind of strange to look at the kind of details of people's lives that last — usually date and place of birth and death, sometimes an obituary or what's carved on your tombstone. And, it appears, the battles you faught in and whatever wounds you took in took in battle. Of course, cousin Ben's life was better documented. And my hairline suddenly makes sense.