I think that RC Sproul Jr was reading Romans 9:7 literally when he claimed that the one commonality between Christians worldwide was that we were all children of Abraham. He could have dropped down another level to Isaac. I personally have no moral requirement to read that literally, though if Abraham existed (which I do happen to take at face value), all but a handful of purebred aboriginals would be able to trace their lineage through him. I can’t find it anywhere, but I have read somewhere that some arbitrarily high percentage of mankind (Caucasian mankind maybe – you’ll find that I don’t know what I’m talking about here) is somehow related to Napoleon. Trees branch exponentially.
But my Y chromosome came from my father. It’s the same one he got from his father, and his father before him. Women can make no such claims of lineage. I have one Y, and it came from my father.
As a man, I can know with certainty where I got half of my genetic material from. Probably not Napoleon – ’tis too direct a pathway.
Unfortunately, I knew only my father and grandfather. I get the stories mixed up, though I think my great grandfather jumped ship from a German navy vessel while at port in NY before WWI. At least I think I’ve heard that. One generation further and I have no idea. There is no way to find out either.
Imagine one could see a documentary on the life of his paternal great grandfather. And his father, and his father’s great grandfather. I would never get tired of watching it – a thousand generations of falling in love, going to war, working at the mill, laughing with his friends, naming the stars, hunting for food, fashioning tools; were they good men? Brave men? Men of God? Men of might? Smart? Did they treat people well? Were they tyrants or murderers or petty thieves? Did they dream of the future? What did they see?
I’ve never thought of my great grandchild 13 times removed. I don’t know that one will exist; I don’t know that anything of this world will exist 500 years hence.
We can unravel the genome to find predispositions for cancers and immunities to chicken pox. I’d like to unravel the genes to find a 30 minute documentary about my great grandfather’s great grandfather.
But, alas, I cannot dredge the past. I couldn’t even come up with a 3 page paper on my own grandfather. Would my great grandson even care to read mine? It is only my future that I can write, and that only by observing it as it happens.
Words 
Good Stuff. As it happens my cousin Evelyn Ruth and Chuck Ernst (Bucknell 62) have put together an extensive geneological search through your paternal grandfather and they can trace the Furst and Wetch genes back to 1280 in Hungary. The area known as Worms (Pronounced Varms) held a walnut farm and estate which is where we all proportly began. The jump ship thing is not the way I understand it though. I believe that my gradnfather was registered in Ellis Island around 1902.
If you are interested, perhaps we can set up a visit with Evelyn and see if she has the geneology chart. Its my belief that one exists. I haven’t delved into this even though I’m aware of it because I’m just trying to live well today.
But it is interesting. See you soon.
I actually have the chart that Chuck put together – it goes back a 150 years or so if I remember. We discussed it at Grandma’s post funeral lunch. Was that tracing through Grandpa’s line though? I suppose I could dig it up and look at it.
I remembered it as Veszprem, Hungary though. Worms is in western Germany, and is where Martin Luther was brought before the emperor to defend his supposed heresies. Maybe there’s another Worms.
Furst does mean “prince” though. Here’s the coat of arms:
http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.fc/qx/furst-family-crest.htm
and here is a treatment from a book on Gaelic origins:
FURST (German). — A prince.
The English numeral, the first, though preserved in the German furst, princeps, a prince. is quite different from the German der Erste, — Wedgwood.
The German furst is not of the
origin as the English word first, notwithstanding the resemblance of meaning to the Latin princeps. The true root is the
Gaelic. — .Fear, a man (and, par excellence, the man). From the same root is the Egyptian Pharaoh, not a name, but a title ; from fear, and aon (obsolete), excellent, illustrious. The French spell the word Pharaon, thus preserving the ancient Keltic and Egyptian meaning, applied to the Egyptian kings as the moderns apply the word Majesty, so that Pharaoh signified the excellent or illustrious man.
I’ll have to look for that myself. I know that our name was changed from Fuerst with an umlaut over the u. By the way, Chuck had quadruple bypass surgery yesterday. He is doing quite well now and will be moved from ICU soon.