Let’s face it, most of us are in this genealogy game for the intrigue. Why did so-and-so disappear? Why did he/she change his/her name? And who did Solomon Leonard really marry?

I tried. I did. I really, really tried to avoid jumping on the Woodstock 40th Anniversary bandwagon. But the simple truth is this… it was a seminal moment in my life (git yer mind outta the gutter!) and there’s no guarantee I’ll be around for the Fiftieth Anniversary. I’m just sayin’.

What, you may ask, does Woodstock have to do with family history? Some of you youngsters may indeed ask, “What IS Woodstock? And that, my friends, is exactly my point. To me, the largest gathering of human beings on the planet had significance.

A quick glance at Leonard Statistics shows us to have a fairly decent record for longevity. We have no fewer than a dozen ancestors who lived past the age of 95. Pretty incredible, when you think about it, given that most of them lived when life expectancy hovered around 35.

This might be a good time to mention that the title “Till Death Do Us Part” has nothing to do with weddings and love songs and 60th anniversaries. (Are you new here?) No, my friends, today we’re going to discuss the many and strange ways our brave ancestors DIED….

Just when I thought I’d have nothing notable to report this week, my Ancestry DNA test results came in…

Pure silliness this week, as I spent entirely too much time trying to unravel another one of those familial inter-marriage thingies. (Actually, it was an old one, and I STILL haven’t figured it out.)

While a few of us were pondering the all-too-frequent cousins marrying cousins, widows marrying their brothers-in-law, and other assorted “familial events”… I couldn’t help but flash on a video spoof I’d seen a couple of years ago.

Hey, it COULD happen…