This week, Joe Biden announced that he was considering “reparations” for people who were “scarred for life'' when they tried to cross into our country illegally during the Trump administration, and they were separated from their children at the border. The so-called “reparations” he was considering amounted to $450,000 per person, or an average of about a million dollars per family. That’s quite a reward for committing a crime!
While anyone could understand that being separated from your children – if they were really these people’s children and not youngsters being dragged here by human sex traffickers – might be traumatic, it should be understood that they were not forced to break our immigration laws and enter illegally in the first place, and if they were traumatized, they should have counted the costs before attempting to cross the border.
About all of us as Americans have legal immigrants in our family history, the ones who went through the process, sometimes with only the clothes on their backs or a small suitcase. These people came to start a new life, but went through the proper channels. And the United States of America became a haven to them, not with the promise of free money for life, but with the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Here are some of my English and Welsh ancestors, as written by Eric, with a little more Native American thrown in for good measure!
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And now for the other half.
MARGARET LEE WARE
Margie’s mother was a strawberry blonde, fair skinned, and rather spontaneous in her decision making. Margaret Lee Ware Atanacio was the daughter of Lee Roy Ware Jr. and Audentia Bell Burdick. Her parents’ marriage didn’t last beyond her 8th birthday. And while Lee became successful in real estate in Southern California, Audentia married for a second time to a migrant steel worker, so Margaret and her mother traveled with him and several half siblings from place to place with no permanent home.
At age 15, Margaret met Daniel Atanacio, an airman in the U.S. Air Force who was stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas where Margaret was living at the time. After Daniel finished a two-year tour in Saudi Arabia, he returned home to Brooklyn darker skinned than ever and Margaret, just out of high school, hopped on a bus and surprised him … and his mother. It was not long before they were married and their daughter Margie was born.
They were married in Washington DC near Andrews Air Base where he was newly stationed, as DC allowed “interracial marriages” where Maryland did not. Though this was not really an interracial marriage, the difference between the two was so stark that no one would believe them.
Engagement Picture, Margaret Lee Ware and Daniel Atanacio
The military was once again a life of constant moving and most of that time with three children. It was from Maryland to California, to the Philippines, to Iowa, to Florida and back to Iowa, to Arizona, and back to California. Much of the moving included a trailer, which was both their home and their home away from home. With three children, the family of five living in a trailer was more tangled than tight knit.
Margaret and Daniel were divorced in 1975 and both remarried. A few years later, with unsurprisingly little forethought, Margaret moved to Alaska with her new husband, settling in Ketchikan after visiting there on a summer cruise. She rarely saw her family after that and died at age 69 with no one at her side.
AUDENTIA BURDICK AND LEE ROY WARE, JR.
Audentia Bell Burdick, the mother of Margaret Lee Ware and Margie’s grandmother, was born in 1921, the daughter of Bernard (Ben) Earl Burdick and Audentia Bell Peake. She was born in Dayton, Ohio, but not necessarily because of any family connection to Dayton. Her father was only 19 years old when she was born, served in the U.S. Army, and died when Audentia was 15.
She married Lee Roy Ware Jr. in 1937 in Yuma, Arizona, just before her sixteenth birthday. She died in Los Angeles at age 47, her life consumed by alcohol.
Lee Roy Ware Jr. was born on December 25, 1915, in Kansas City, Missouri. He was the son of Lee Roy Ware Sr. and Jenny June Riley. He moved to California in the 1940s working at Douglas Aircraft during WWII, either at the plant in Long Beach or the very large complex in Santa Monica. After the war, he settled in the Long Beach area and began developing real estate. He helped establish the City of Hawaiian Gardens and became its first mayor. His first marriage ended early, and his second marriage to Pearl Tyler was successful. Lee died in January of 2011 at the age of 95 and was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Cypress, California.
WARE AND RILEY FAMILIES
The Ware Family history is the longest line thus far recorded following directly through the male line. From Lee Roy Ware Jr. (first mayor of Hawaiian Gardens, CA), it can be traced 31 generations back, all the way to the year 1125 and Jordan de la Warr, before the name changes and the line leads to Harding Fitz Eadnoth and his father known as Eadnoth the Staller who was killed in battle in 1068. He was a Staller (or Mayor) of Bristol, England. So, the Ware family from which my wife Margie descended had a mayor on both ends.
I also recently discovered that Margie and I share common ancestry in Harding Fitz Eadnoth, as he also connects with the Patmore / Pierson family through the Dudley / Berkeley line. We connect in other ways also, but this one goes way back. Not as far as Noah, but pretty early, at least for an Anglo family.
Another interesting family on the Ware side is the Sebastian Family, which married into the Robins Family of the Chowan (or Chowanoke) tribe of Native Americans of North Carolina. More research is needed on this one.
The Riley Family has historical significance through the Chenoweth line as well as the Logan / Talbot line.
John LeRoy Riley was the father of Margie’s great grandmother, Jenny June Riley Ware. I met Jenny June once while traveling across Missouri into Kansas on our way to Hawaii via California in 1976. She died in Independence, Missouri in 1979 at the age of 84. We have several pictures of her.
As Margie was growing up, Jenny June was “Great Grandma Ware in Missour-ah.”
Her father John was born in 1862 to James Hall Riley and Elizabeth Smith. John was the Postmaster of Dodge City, Kansas and true to the legends of that city, carried a gun on the job. He died at the ripe old age of 92, from injuries sustained from falling out of a tree.
James Hall Riley’s parents were John Lewis Riley (bn 1807) and Ann (Anna) Knotts, (bn 1810.)
John Lewis Riley, Jenny June’s grandfather
We have pictures of Jenny June and her grandmother Ann. There is a distinct resemblance.
Anna Knotts, Jenny June’s grandmother
Jenny June Riley Ware
Elizabeth Smith Riley was the daughter of Harrison Casey Smith and Elizabeth H. Logan, the daughter of James P. Logan and Elizabeth Talbot of Kentucky. The Talbot family connects directly to the line of Thomas Arundell, born about 1560. Thomas was the 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour. He distinguished himself in battle against the Ottoman Turks in the service of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and was made Count of the Holy Roman Empire. (This title no longer exists, since the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist in 1806.) The title was to be passed on to his descendants perpetually. (Oh well!) This is the same Thomas Arundell that connects the Chenoweth Family with British royalty. So Margie is actually related to herself.
James Hall Riley, son of Lewis Riley, was born in 1838. He married Cassandra Ellen Morris, a young girl from Indiana, and served in the 135th Indiana Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War. James was born in Franklin County, Ohio, and sometime later, moved to Benton County Indiana. They are both buried in Clark County, Kansas.
Cassandra’s parents were John Morris (bn.1816) and Mary Chenoweth (bn 1804). While John was born in Virginia, Mary was born in Ohio, and the two probably met in Ohio or eastern Indiana and moved to Benton County, Indiana. They are both buried at the Mount Gilboa Cemetery in Pine Township, Benton County, Indiana. Margie and I went to visit their graves with Lawrence Hall, a distant cousin. This was the moment that Margie began to realize that she was not a mere transplant, but a true Hoosier.
The line of ancestry from Mary Chenoweth was the first that I found to trace back to royalty, although that connection has been contested. It is here that we understand that most genealogies that can be traced that far require a bit of gullibility. The voice of the past is often verified through an echo chamber. Stories are told and retold and are assumed to be true simply because we read them in two or three different “scholarly” works which rely on the same source.
Mary Chenoweth was the daughter of John Chenoweth (bn. 1785) and Betsey Foster. Mary was one of 13 children, 8 of which carried on the Chenoweth name. John Chenoweth’s father was Thomas Chenoweth (bn. 1753) the husband of Cassandra Foster. Sorting this out was difficult because not only do we see the evidence of cousins marrying, but there were also twin sisters in the Foster family (and there were also twins among John and Betsey Chenoweth’s children).
I was assuming that the last name of Chenoweth, being a bit obscure, would be easier to trace, but I quickly learned that some regions of Indiana, including Benton County, had many of them. Our John Chenoweth was from Darke County, Ohio, as well as the Foster family, but to my surprise, there were several John Chenoweth’s living in Darke County at the same time, and of the same approximate age. Only after connecting the right John Chenoweth with the right Foster female, was I able to move on.
Thomas Chenoweth was the son of Thomas Chenoweth Sr. (bn. 1720 in Baltimore, Maryland) and Mary Prickett. Thomas and Mary had 12 children with 7 to carry the Chenoweth name forward. The father of Thomas Chenoweth was John Chenoweth (bn. 1682/83), who fathered at least 8 children, with 5 of them to carry the Chenoweth name. In every generation, the name John and Thomas were passed on to the next. Other family names were also repeated.
John Chenoweth was the first Chenoweth in America arriving from Wales in about 1703.
He married Mary Calvert, the supposed daughter of Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore. According to History of the Chenoweth Family, a scholarly work by Cora Chenoweth Hiatt, pub. 1925, regarding the missing documents related to the holdings of the Chenoweth family:
“The fact remains that two diaries and one Bible record gives that John Chenoweth gent. of Cornwall County, England, married a daughter of Charles Calvert, third Lord Baltimore, while another says he married Mary Calvert, daughter of the same. The diaries belong to the families of Arthur and Thomas (sons of John Chenoweth), while the Bible belonged to his eldest son (John).”
Yet, while Mrs. Hiatt’s work is exhaustive and quite believable, it is known that Mary Calvert’s birth is not recorded in the Bible belonging to Charles Calvert.
The importance of this link to Charles Calvert is that Calvert’s mother was Ann Arundel, daughter of Lord Thomas Arundell and a direct descendant of Edward I of England, and thereby a descendant of William the Conqueror, Alfred the Great, and Charlemagne.
Chris’s Haley’s charcoal portrait of our ancestor, Charlemagne.
It’s a wonderful history to follow and to do so extensively would result in a fine library of information. But there are many who doubt this connection today and it’s speculated that a sudden lack of documentation may have resulted from a lawsuit filed in 1920 by the Chenoweth and other related families against the city of Baltimore, claiming ownership of a large part of the city. The story smells of corruption in early 20th Century Baltimore. Who would have ever guessed that!
Margie’s mother, Margaret Ware, had always told the story that her great, great… grandmother was the seamstress for the Prince of Wales (the Crown Prince). That may well have been this family, as Margaret Howard is in the Arundell line of ancestry. Margaret was the sister of Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII. Maybe she served in that position, but if she did, it would have been Prince Edward Tudor, who ascended the British throne as Edward the VI. It is apparently not recorded who the seamstress was for this boy king or even if he had one as Prince of Wales. Maybe Margaret Howard was just there to help out, or maybe it was somebody else, but Margaret Howard was the closest ancestor of Margaret Ware to brush with British royalty (twice at that!).
Margaret Howard, a brush with royalty
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And with that, we pause, polish our fingernails upon our chest, and smile, right? I’m sure not many people know that when we named Lisa and Emily, I had British royalty in the back of my mind. My mom thought I had named Lisa “Elizabeth” after Grandpa Ware’s sister, but I told her it was actually after Elizabeth on the TV show, “The Walton’s.” Really, though, there’s something admirable about being named after a queen, so that seemed reasonable when I was 22. Eric liked the name, too, but I’m not sure he really knew what I was thinking.
And Emily? Well, yes, there was an Emily character on “The Walton’s” as well, but her middle name is “Jane,” after Lady Jane Grey. Admittedly, she reigned for a very brief time, but she was queen for a while.
Then, being woefully unacquainted with good royalty names, I moved on to other types of names from Chris on down the line, always checking with Eric. We didn’t use a name unless we could agree.
Eric recently quoted someone who said that if your family connects to Charlemagne (as is the case with many, many people), it usually also connects to Charlemagne’s horse’s groom – that’s just harder to trace. And of course, our kids were impressed that they were Counts and Countesses of the Holy Roman Empire – except that that empire isn’t around any longer.
I just looked up “Queen Margaret” in Wikipedia, and the number of them is shocking! Except that I’m not really a Margaret. Margaret Howard was a Margaret, and my mother was too, but I’m a lowly Margie. (Do you remember “Lowly Worm” in the Richard Scarry books?)
So, royalty or not, I am who I am, and that is who God created me to be – quite the commoner.
And yet ...
Because of the promise of my Bridegroom Jesus Christ, someday I will be wed to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I will be a Warrior Wife! Here are some pertinent verses in Revelation about it:
“And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, ‘Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.’
“And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
“Then he said to me, ‘Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!' ‘ And he said to me, ‘These are the true sayings of God.’ "
Rev. 19:6-9
“Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
“And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.”
Rev. 19:11-14
“And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.”
Rev. 19:16
Whether you’re a British royals fan or not, this description of The Church, clothed in fine linen and given in marriage to the Son of God, our Savior, is enough to stir one’s imagination. Charlemagne (Charles the Great) is dead. But Jesus the Christ (Y’shua HaMashiah) is alive and will never die again.
In fact, we who are Christians are children of God, and so are already princes and princesses. The Son of God will be marrying a royal Bride!
Don’t feel like royalty? Ah, as a Christian you are royalty-in-training. There are many things we must learn.
But if you’re not, that can be remedied:
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
~John 1:12-13
Believe and receive.
“Dear Jesus, we are thrilled to read of Your marriage, to dream of Your glory and Your love for us for eternity. Cleanse us from all our impurities and make Your Church worthy to be Your Bride.
“And if there are some who have read these words and long to be cleansed of sin, we pray that that will happen. Today is the day of salvation -- tomorrow could be too late. Forgive us from our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, that we can be adopted into the royal family of God.
*For it is in Your Name that we pray, Amen.”
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