Elaura Ligon

ENC 1102
February 13, 2015
Assignment 1

Tradition in my family has always been very important to me, even if I cant
say the same thing for my brothers and sisters. In my early childhood I spent a lot of
time with some very stubborn, Irish women baking and learning their recipes so that
one day I could really come to appreciate what it was that made the Irish different
from the rest. Corned beef and cabbage on every Saint Patricks Day, classic horror
film movie marathons every October, and the family lunches after church at least
one Sunday of every month molded my idea of family values all through my middle
and high school years. However, up until recently, I never knew my whole family
history or genealogy. All I knew for sure was that I was definitely Irish and I was
definitely French, but what I didnt understand was exactly how far back my lineage
went and what it all meant. I knew the latest 4 generations of my family history
from my aunts, uncles, and grandparents telling me all of their old stories about
their crazy family adventures, so for this assignment I had decided to work
backwards. I wanted to know my distant family history; the kind of history that
determines whether youre a legend or a bystander in the historical timeline your
ancestors helped create. I wanted to know what revolutions my ancestors were part
of, who they granted independence, what countries they might have helped
conquer and maybe even ruled? And believe me when I tell you, there never
seemed to be a dull moment in the Ligon line.

The real trouble was finding all of the information that my family members
hadnt been told. Its easy to remember the historic ancestors, but what about the

Elaura Ligon
ENC 1102
February 13, 2015
Assignment 1
ones that connect them to our family tree? I spent an entire week on
FamilySearch.org with one of my grandparents connecting her family tree to mine.
In order to do that, I had to gather information on all of my living relatives and
connect them to the deceased relatives that were in the database. Once I found all
of my mothers lineage, I had to find my fathers family lineage on my own because
none of his family had used that website for their genealogy records. Though it did
take a long time, once I had everything pieced together and I followed the trails
within the family tree to find the ancestors I was looking for, I found a lot more
information than I had anticipated. I found cousins, aunts, great uncles, great great
grandmothers, and so on and so forth; it seemed that each new ancestor I stumbled
upon had something great that they were a part of or some historical event that
was during their time period. So all I could do was write it all down and take it all in
before I really figured out what I wanted to talk about for this paper.

Since I knew most of what I was told about my fathers side of the family, I
decided to go as far back into my mothers family history as I could, starting with
my grandfather who was in the United States Navy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In fact, he was on one of the ships that was stationed right off the coast of Cuba.
The stories he told me of his time spent on that ship was something I never
expected to hear, and of course you never know how things really happened if you
werent there to see it for yourself. He had distant family members that were in
Ireland during the Easter Rising Rebellion of 1916 and some even earlier in the
1800s when the riots first started after the signing of the Act of Union of 1800,
which gave Great Britain rights to the Irish Parliament and relocated it to their
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Elaura Ligon
ENC 1102
February 13, 2015
Assignment 1
headquarters in England. Between that and the potato famine, his ancestors knew it
was time to start new. However my grandmothers story was a little different; her
Polish parents immigrated to the United States to give her a better chance at life
where she could adapt to American customs and have a fresh start, making me 3 rd
generation Polish. Though none of her Polish traditions really affected me or my
mother, she definitely involved herself with all sorts of cultural experiences. She
moved to Mexico and began doing artworks on papyrus paper, visiting every now
and again to surprise us with her most recent works. As for my mothers ancestors,
they were mostly from Ireland and England on her fathers side. True Irishmen and
women and the first of her ancestors to come to America had left during the potato
famine to find a life for themselves and their children in the north. According to my
grandmother, she had a lot of family members that were a part of a Polish/Russian
conflict in the early 1900s and then a Polish revolution a century or so before then.
She didnt have any specific details, but it was quite a challenge from the stories
her great grandfather used to tell her when she was a girl.

My fathers side of the family on the other hand, has so much history that
they took up most of the space in my research portfolio. The more recent
generations of my family dont have much history aside from having family on both
sides of the Civil War. However, his side of the family had first ventured to America
during the evolution of the Virginia Colony in the 1600s, which was when the
Lygon name became the Ligon/Liggon name. The ancestor that had moved his
family to the Virginia Colony was a captain in the Virginia militia, and he was just
the end of a long line of conquerors, rulers, and soldiers of war and the beginning of
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Elaura Ligon
ENC 1102
February 13, 2015
Assignment 1
the new route for American independence and discovery. In the 1750s during the
American Revolutionary War for independence, his great great great grandson
assisted in marching troupes alongside George Washington at the battle in
Lexington and Concord. I had also found out that I was a direct descendant to
Sitting Bull, who was a Hunkpapa Lakota holy man that led his people as a tribal
chief in Grand River during years of Native American resistance to the United States
government and their policies in the 1800s. Needless to say, my ancestors were all
about independence and equal rights once they began their journey in North
America.

Elaura Ligon
ENC 1102
February 13, 2015
Assignment 1
But before their journey to America even began, there was another journey
that had to occur: the French conquering England. Prior to this feat, there is a long
line of Spanish and French royalty dating back before year 1000, and they were
content ruling France and other parts of Europe. The Lygon and the Beauchamp
family, both intertwined in my
family line, came overseas from
France with William the Conqueror
in 1065. William the Conqueror,
also known as the Duke of
Normandy and to be a descendant
of Viking raiders, was the first
Norman King of England after the
Norman conquest of England. Thus, the Beauchamp/Warwick castle was stood in the
honor of our family dedication to William the Conqueror during his reign until he
married Matilda of Flanders and she bore him nine children, one of which was Henry
I of England.

But thats not even the most interesting story I discovered. One of the
Norman ancestors I have was named William II Strong Hand DAubigny and he
was born in 1090. His line of family isnt as known in my family tree, however his
wife is known in many parts of England: Queen Adeliz of Louvaine. Though her
name might not mean much to most people, she is better known as the 2 nd wife to
King Henry I of England which was a childless marriage nonetheless before the king
had died and granted his daughter Matilda with the thrown. Three years after King
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Elaura Ligon
ENC 1102
February 13, 2015
Assignment 1
Henry Is death, Adeliz married William II and presented my family with seven
children that lived with them in her castle of Arundel. William Richard DAubigny,
their first son, is our direct link to their
family. I had to look up most of this
information when I connected my family
tree, but I remember my aunt telling me
about the stories my grandmother would
tell her and my dad about how beautiful the
castle must have been and how it impacts
our family legacy.

I had never really considered that my ancestors or my genealogy could have

so much historical value. With my deep French, English, and Irish roots Ive come to
realize how resilient my ancestors were and what they fought for. When it came to
family and independence, they really understood what it meant to take fate into
their own hands and run with it. They conquered and they fought and they evolved,
and when I become someones grandmother or great grandmother, Ill be doing the
same traditions and telling the same stories that my grandparents had told and that
their grandparents had told. Because when you boil it down, legacy and tradition
are all we have and if you dont pass it to the people that matter the most, then it
wont be alive for long.