On DH side his greatgrand father was a nephew to Robert E Lee, CW caused a break up of the Lee family, some never spoke of there family members again. When GGF was around no one said the name Robert E. Lee! DH Grandmother (Lee) married a man named Smith. GF Smith had ben raised by an Indian Tribe from the New York area. The dark hair and steal blue eyes. has been passed down from GF Smith to DH, to DS and his son, one of our blond DGD has the steal blue eyes also.
On my side don't know a whole lot on my birth father side, (he died when I was 1 day old)nothing is realy known about my grand father just his name and he married my grandmother in Ark. They had one child , my father, who died at the age of 23 from a life long illness. My Great Grand mother Was from the Ark.,OK., area, when she married a white man the whole tribe disowned her my Grandmother in later years finally admitted her mother was an Indian. When Grandma was about 12-13 her dad came home from work one Sat and told his wife that Sunday a friend was comming to supper and he wanted grandma to make pie for that nite. Sunday nite came and so did the man her father had invited. Grandma said her dad walked the man out the door after supper. When he came back in he asked Grandma what she thought of that man. She sad he seamed nice enough. Her Father said good cause come next Sunday you and he are gettin married. You guessed it. 7 days latter she saw him again and they got married the were married over 56 years.(her Dad was scared she would be an old maide, her sister got married at 12!) When I got married at the age of 19 Grandma was really worried that I was rushing it! LOL On Moms side my Granfather came from Denmark, shortly after WW1, traveled by train from NY City to Wenatchee Wa. not knowing a word of English Some one had tied a label with his destionation on his coat lapel like a package label. The Peterson boys (they were his sponcers to get to the US) met him at the Wenatchee train station. Thankfully they spoke Danish and my Grandfather could ask them for water, he had not eaten or drank anything sence leaving NY! The Peterson family owned a wheat ranch in the Waterville area, my Grandfather worked for them for about 3 years , they only spoke Danish on the ranch. Finally my GF decided he needed to learn
English, and he said he really didn't like the dryland farming. So he left the area and headed out to the Brewster area. Learned some English and worked in the Apple orchards. Met my GM when he was looking for some one thought he had the right farm, Wrong, Grandma was about 16, old country german father had taught her well, if strangers show up set the dogs on them! Yep she did! My GF had the scars on his legs to prove it to. Hrs. later when my GGF go home he called off the dogs and my GF was finally able to get out of that tree. My GF refused to teach his children Danish He said you are American and Americans speak English!(nobody argued we my GF when he used that tone of voice!)LOL We tryed to trace where in Germany my GGF came from but he changed his name. Not legaly, There is no record of his name leaving Germany or Arriving in this Country in the time frame we know he arrived here. His wife my GGM was from the Ill. area traveled out here on a wagon train was a School teacher at the age of 18 I have some of her signed contracts, fun to read! She was also the first Postmistress at Mazamz (a town that was there for the Gold) She kept jurnals all her life some are really funny to read, we have no conseption what these people lived through and what they thought of everyday life. Tough people living and loving in what they considered the modern age