STOP THE PRESSES! I'm from Yorkshire!!!

Maybe.

Let me explain.

From time to time I have done a bit of genealogical sleuthing to learn more about my roots, but I would not say I am obsessed with the subject. Mrs. RWP might disagree. Still, I have never plunked down one red cent to ancestry.com or any other search site for the privilege of seeing their data. I do remember that my father used to say that his mother told them they were related to U.S. President Grover Cleveland.

It was interesting and I was curious but never interested enough to pursue the subject.

This week I pursued it (but I still didn't spend any money).

It turns out that President Cleveland -- "old 22/24" -- and I are indeed related. To be specific, he and I are sixth cousins, three times removed. (I call him "old 22/24" because he served two terms as president of the United States but the terms were not consecutive. He was elected in both 1884 and 1892. If George H.W. Bush can be called "old 41" then I can call Grover "old 22/24".)

I already knew that my father's mother was Edith Lillian (Johnson) Brague (1877-1938) and that her mother was Bloomy Jane (Cleveland) Johnson (1840-1900), so I began tracing Bloomy Jane's ancestors this week and went back as far as an Edward Wynne who was born in Yorkshire in 1582 and died in Yorkshire in 1606, who may have been my tenth great-grandfather.

So I'm a Yorkshireman!!! (maybe).

I say maybe because it hinges on whether the Edward Wynne who was born in Yorkshire in 1582 and died in Yorkshire in 1606 was the father of an Edward Winn who was born in Suffolk in 1604 and died in Massachusetts in 1682; no one seems to know for certain. The Suffolk Edward had a daughter named Ann who became the wife of a Moses Cleveland who turned out to be my eighth great-grandfather and President Grover Cleveland's fifth-grandfather. Moses Cleveland and Ann (Winn) Cleveland eventually emigrated from England to America and died in Massachusetts (Ann in 1682 and Moses in 1702). I have more information about my ancestors but I won't bore you with it.

I may be other things too -- there are connections on the Cleveland side to Ipswich in Suffolk -- but once a Yorkshireman, always a Yorkshireman.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Editor's note. There seems to be a fly in the ointment in that my newly found long-lost cousin Peggy out on the West Coast tells me that she has a photograph of little Edith Lillian Johnson being held by her great-grandfather, Arthur Cleveland, and in my searchings this week I didn't find an Arthur Cleveland. So perhaps I have been barking up the wrong tree (pun intended) and more research is warranted. I hope it doesn't interfere with my being a Yorkshireman. --RWP]