The credit for this article is due to the American Ideal organization who published the article.  For the full article, please click on the below link:

https://americanideal.org/george-washington-and-the-genealogist/

As SAR members, many of us are actively seeking to learn more about our ancestral heritage.  Some of us are fortunate to have well documented ancestors, many have a much greater challenge.

The article by American Ideal addresses the fact that George Washington did not know a great deal about the history of his family, and most of what he did know was vague and indistinct.

In the spring of 1792, George Washington received a letter from Sir Isaac Heard, an English genealogist who bore the impressive title of Garter King of Arms.

Sir Isaac was one of the official genealogists to the English aristocracy. He had encountered a document related to the Washington family and this had prompted him to trace President Washington’s English lineage — just as he was responsible for tracing and verifying the lineages of the British nobility.

George Washington’s father, Augustine, had died when George was eleven. George’s grandfather, Lawrence Washington, had died when Augustine was a small boy.

These early deaths seem to have erased much of the family’s memory of its past.  President Washington was largely cut off from his family’s history.

He knew the names of his father, paternal grandfather Lawrence Washington, and paternal great-grandfather, John Washington, the immigrant who had arrived in Virginia on the Sea Horse of London in the mid-seventeenth century. But he knew little else.

Today, we have the advantage of the internet, SAR/DAR archives and digitized records to help us research our past ancestors.  In addition, there is a huge amount of data and previous ancestral information that has been captured by many, for our betterment.

Even those who are historically significant places in our history have challenges tracing their lineage.

Enjoy this article!