so last month I lost half a million dollars (twice!) and found out I was related to my husband ... part 2

While I was going holiday crazy, my brother joined ancestry.com.

He was quickly obsessed and arrived to Thanksgiving dinner with pages of names and a roll of scotch tape.

(the papers print out like a chart or like branches on a tree, but it is easy to get lost reading them and easier if you tape them all together all over your floor like a real tree - or at least this is what we did)

Anyhoo, it was quickly apparent that George and I are related (yikes, poor Olive), which may be true of almost everyone if we go far enough back, but we didn't have to go very far. Also the names we are related through are last names the town we currently live in is filled with, even though neither of our families are from this town. And neither of us ever realized we were related to any of these people.

And the plot thickens ...

There has always been a family story of an ancestor named David Matthews (my grandmother's grandfather I believe, if I have enough grands in there) who fought in the Civil War, lost a leg, shook hands with Lincoln, owned half of the next county and to his detriment never learned to read and write. He was swindled of his property by an unscrupulous lawyer and shady judge when he signed his X on the wrong dotted line.

We learned from my brother's ancestry.com work that David Matthews had a daughter who married a lawyer - this daughter later died under mysterious and unknown circumstances and this lawyer, who was then a wealthy widower sold a lot of property and moved ... I don't know, somewhere warm I would imagine. David Matthews was still alive at this time.

This lawyer who we will just call THE LYING SACK OF NO GOOD FILTH

(hubs is having a stroke that I might write this name, since our town is still filled with this name, so I will just call him what my family has been calling him for generations)

was related back to my husband in exactly the same way David Matthews is related to me (grandmother's grandfather)!!

So it would appear hubs' great-great great grandfather (if I have the correct number of greats in here) swindled my great-great great grandfather, possible murdered my great-great great aunt in order to own half the next county - which his new wife and heirs must have proceeded to sell off with great expediency since none of it is left.

Now, I can't actually prove much of this. But I do know I have a family story about a swindle by a lawyer and now know the person who was swindled had a daughter who married a lawyer who came into a great deal of money at precisely the time my ancestor lost it.

(I don't need Miss Marple to puzzle through the chance of this happening)

Also, I almost forgot the most interesting part ... this all took place in the town I now live in - which is a very small town that hubs and I only stumbled into because we drove through it back and forth to work for a year to avoid the main roads.

And the farm my great great great grandfather lived in was on the road we currently live on (long gone now) and possibly the very property we live on was part of that property.

Yes, I know this sounds like a Lifetime movie.

I can't decide if this is a million to one happening or if this kind of stuff is bound to happen when people's families have lived in the same general area for generations. I can't help thinking there is some kind of ancestral karma here that I should look at. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it is something hubs and I have ironed out just by being together, I don't know.

I do know that I have been making it clear to hubs that he owes me at least half a million dollars because of the actions of his direct ancestor THE LYING SACK OF NO GOOD FILTH.

I should be a rich woman now.

(rich in ways larger than cork and magnets, people)

Also the house we looked at that we didn't buy is next door to the oldest house in town which was moved to that location from the location right next door to our current house and also may play a part in the story ....

I have probably given you a headache and you are thinking, what the hell is she talking about ... it is rather hard to follow. I need to make myself a little chart and post the picture for the screenplay I am writing for Lifetime.

First I need some kind of ending for this story - like maybe I win the lottery, hubs murders me for my winnings and the ancestral drama plays out all over again ...

this would all wrap my story up rather nicely. Well, not so nicely for me, but nicely for Lifetime maybe.