Family Lore

Family Lore

Beware, not for the faint of heart!

My grandfather was closest to his sister Daisy Lowe Curry and her family. We are descended from Elizabeth Jane (Jinnie) Curry on Green Turtle Cay, whose grandmother Martha Albury was the source of our distant royal connections, via Bermuda. My grandfather Victor Lowe seemed to forget he even was a Lowe sometimes. My father seemed to think Grandma had him by immaculate conception. LOL. He wanted to be a Cates, like her family. He seemed to think Grandpa was just a strange man who got lost and stumbled into their house. LOL. There's obviously some slight taint associated with our family name Lowe, because of the pirate ancestry, that cannot be swept under the rug entirely. My uncle said that the best way to find my Lowe relatives is to drive into the trashiest trailer parks in Florida and yell "Free beer!" Isn't he terrible? LOL. Lowe family members encompass a broad range from totally brilliant to dead stupid, with most of us somewhere in between, including me. But I'm proud to be a Lowe. My mother says the surname Lowe does not elevate her children's status nearly as much as we add to the reputation of the Lowe family name, with good looks, advanced degrees, creativity, etc. LOL. Of course, most mothers are biased toward their children, but my mother is truthful to a fault, so maybe she is right that we do add new blood to the Lowes, improving the breed, so to speak. I admit that common sense was never our strong suit, in this family, but I think horse sense is very overrated, don't you? Unless you are a horse. LOL. All things considered, I'm thrilled with the results of my research into my roots. I never liked the modern term "roots" in referring to our family tree, but I must keep up-to-date with my vocabulary. LOL. I never understood Hillary Clinton when she said it takes a "village" to raise a child. That sounds so "third world". LOL. I used to think the ancient McArthur tradition of descent from Mary Magdalene, disciple of Jesus and an unknown father (but we can guess), was the greatest ancestry possible for a good Christian boy, like me, baptized in the Episcopal Church. It's nice to have relatives in high places! Read the Da Vinci Code. But now that I discovered my Y-DNA haplogroup suggests that I'm a male line descendant of Aaron, brother of Moses, that's even better, don't you think? Or maybe I could be both! I do not yet understand how to reconcile DNA evidence with Biblical teachings. But I don't want to let my DNA results go to my head, making me too uppity. I might be getting TOO proud, above my assigned station in life, as a bank geek. High rank on the family tree of mankind involves many duties as well as honors. I don't want that kind of responsibility. LOL. I'm also proud that I'm related to many people named Roberts, many of whom are very important in their professions. But let's not forget that they had pirate ancestors, too. LOL. Pirating was a profession like any other. If you got a royal license or government contract, it made it respectable, IMHO. All those Spanish treasure ships full of gold passed close by, so it would have been hard to resist such an opportunity. These Spaniards were "Papists", so the local vicar would pardon privateers ahead of time for any excesses committed during their patriotic work for King and Country. Even when I was a boy in grade school, teachers taught us that privateers were the good guys, but at some point, history was revised to ignore historical realities.