Adam

Today in church, there was an overall "theme" in the talks given by three different speakers.  One could sum it up as "Family and History."  One talk focused on a girl's ancestors who were Mormon pioneers and their struggles to move westward to avoid persecution for being Mormons {in a brand new nation founded on religious freedom}, another dealt with one guy's findings as he took a family history class at BYU, and another was about the history of America and the Mormon's role in it.

My grandpa is really into Genealogy.  I mean REALLY into it.  His garage is full of old family photos, and journals and he belongs to just about every family history website ever.  I've always known that I come from royalty (this explains a lot!), and our royal heritage can be traced back to almost every branch of my family tree.  I didn't realize,however, the impact of coming from royalty can have in tracing ones lineage. {Royal families have immaculate family history records dating back to biblical times.}

Anyway, a few years ago, my Grandpa was able to trace out family back to Adam!  You know, like Adam and Eve?!?  It's crazy to look at a piece of paper and see how I directly connect the first man ever on earth!  This year I've also been personally studying the Old Testament.  One other little fun thing I've been doing is tracing my lineage through the Bible as I read stories of my ancestors.  It has been such a blessing, not mention so neat, to have this work done, and I'm grateful to my Grandpa for doing it!

This is a link to the "condensed-non-forked-tree" version of my family tree.  The real predigree that my Grandpa has is hundreds of pages long.

There are also some really cool names on this list:
-  Noah {yea, the guy with the arc}

-  King Priam of Toy and daughter Helenus {while Homer's the Iliad was said to be fiction, it's based on these characters}
-  Charlemagne Emperor of Holy Roman Empire