Family Trees and DNA, Oh My?

I had my DNA tested for fun (and science), which was interesting, I spit in a cute little tube and sent it in the mail because yeah. Here were the results.

So here is a ramble below, I am super tired so I don't want to grammar right now. So this is what you get...

Anyway, this set me on a super fun little adventure of building a pretty comprehensive family tree. Most of the branches on my tree as far as my Dad's father's line (Harris/Yandry) and my mother's side (McCormick/Smith) and (Ace/Showers) came to a total stop.

BUT...BUT my Dad's maternal grandmother's side (which my dad never got into researching, or failed to tell me about) IS SUPER EXCITING. Just to give you a tiny idea of how absorbed I became into this line: I started looking up people and there was just a wealth of information. I started going at it at like 6:30 Sunday and by 5am I had built this tree and lineage well into the 1500s. Then I stayed up an extra 3 hours because I noticed a familiar presidential name and searched a bit more to discover how we were related.

This line is the LeSueur/Chastain and LeSueur/Tyler line. The LeSueur line brought me first to the Chastain's. My Great Grandfather is John T. LeSueur so eventually from him I hit Elizabeth Chastain daughter of Pierre Chastain and Ann Soblet of Manakin, Va. Pierre is my 7th Great Grandfather and he happens to be a French Huguenot who ventured here with 207 others. Because of him, there was literally an amazing amount of information on each little leaf of my proverbial tree that I was able to go so far back on it. I think the shocking thing is finding out how much French was in this line. If someone asked me if I was of French descent before doing my tree here I would have said, "No, don't think so" but there is a lot of French. Especially because for a few generations my Huguenots get with only other Huguenots and people of French descent. And I would have never known that my great grandmother was of French descent if I didn't decide to make a family tree.

In the morning I joined a little online group to discover more information and things about the Chastain line and was told that I may be related to actress Joan Crawford (Lucille LeSueur). All the person knew was that she was descended from Pierre Chastain but he wasn't sure how distant she was from myself. I went back in my line a little bit and saw that Joan is descended from Elizabeth's son Christain where I am from the brother Samuel. So that was interesting, I figured she must be like a 6th or 7th cousin of mine if my genealogical math is correct.  


When I spent time about 7/8 gens back I found some interesting things. For example, eventually, you run into a Strother line where the Mason line marries into my family. I discovered that myself and George Mason IV (a Founding Father) share a direct descendant George Mason I. In fact, my 6th great grandmother Mary Mason was 1st cousins with George Mason IV.

The same happened in the Lesueur/Tyler line when I followed the Tyler line well into the morning trying to add notes for sourcing later. It hit me that the Tyler names were sounding quite familiar. So I followed my line all the way back to Henry Tyler (1607) one of the original settlers in VA. Following it back up I fell onto a John Tyler and President John Tyler happens to be another 1st cousin with a direct ancestor of mine (Both our line's come from Henry Tyler b1660. My line came from Henry's son Francis and JT's came from Francis' brother, John.

Anyway, until next time, let me introduce all my new DISTANT FAM.  Welcome to the weird being related to Megan club, enjoy. (But Mason and Tyler can suck it because they were dicks about Slavery.)