Genealogy was a time consuming hobby of mine for over five years. I kept it low-key. I would never ask a guest, “Hey, ya wanna see my family tree?” I knew that to most people, that would be the equivalent of, “Hey, ya wanna see my stamp collection?” At the risk of being rude by yucking some stamp collector’s yum, Genealogy is a hobby that will lead to discoveries of personal identification that it’s philatelic counterpart just doesn’t offer when it comes to boring hobbies.
Through my genealogical studies, I discovered that I am a Swamp Yankee. I’ve uncovered many other interesting facts about myself and my family, to name a few: Most of my Canadian French ancestors birthed their eldest children one to two months prematurely, seven to eight months after their wedding day…And that’s the story they are sticking to! That wasn’t anywhere near the shocker that that got me out of the “genes” business. I’ll never forget the day, shocked and shaken, I had to sit down with my wife of thirteen years, take her hand, look her in the eyes, and say, “Honey, I just traced back a Swamp Yankee branch of my family tree, and just found out that we are - cousins.”
One of the more derogatory definitions of Swamp Yankee is that we are a Southern New England version of Southern Rednecks. So, after getting a lot of mileage out of the “If a Redneck couple get divorced, are they still brother and sister?” joke, I guess I deserved this jokes-on-me turn of the tables. Lucky for me, ah, I mean us –including our son…we are very, very distant cousins. This is very common among people from the same region and nationality. For instance, any Canadian French couples who trace their roots back far enough are bound to share an ancestor. Catholic priests kept excellent records, and were instrumental in the prevention of sanguinous marriages, that is marriage between close relatives, including first cousins. Some cultures, including Colonial Protestants, encouraged first cousin marriages. And yes, there are a couple of them in the upper, Swamp Yankee branches of my family tree.
Another derogatory story revolves around a theory of how we received our title, “Swamp Yankee.” It is said that the British invasion of 1776 caused some residents of Thompson, CT to retreat to the woods of the swamps. When they walked back into town they were labeled “Swamp Yankees.” Although this story implies cowardice, and I can’t find, anywhere on the internet, any more to this story, I want to counter this cowardly connotation with some conjecture. British soldiers were urban fighters. The reason the lesser trained Colonial militia men were able to kick their asses, was because they were better guerilla fighters that drew the enemy into the jungle of the New England woods, where the militia men had a distinct advantage. These Connecticut Swamp Yankees did the same thing that this Rhode Island Swamp Yankee would have done: packed up my wife, and kids, and dog, and guns, and wife’s and kid’s guns and dug in, deep in the woods, hoping the bad guys didn’t follow but all ready to shoot them dead if they did. Cowardice? Nah, good military strategy.
At this point, I would like to explain and define “Swamp Yankee”…But Wikipedia has done a very accurate job of that already, so why reinvent the wheel? Check it out, and also these other links to become a Swamp Yankee aficionado.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_Yankees
http://www.nesales.com/swampyankee.htm
http://www.projo.com/ri/charlestown/content/SC_SWAMPCOL_02-29-08_UH95CTL_v43.1d42eee.html
About Kevin Leland I've had a job or a hobby for just about every letter of the alphabet. The many experiences along the way has given me tons of material To write about along the way. Some completely anecdotal, some informational. I like to mix both up with a dash of potty humor.
