No, not the 13th

Yesterday was Friday, and The Legal Genealogist was watching the 14th.

Not the 13th.

I mean, she was there, and a big part of the activities, shown here on the right.

But it was the 14th — the one on the left — that we were all focused on.

Yesterday, at the Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky, the first of that generation in my Pettypool line to have been born on this continent graduated from high school.

William Pettypool and Ann Smith were the first to live here, but were born in England, both arriving in colonial Maryland as indentured servants in the mid-1600s.

The first to be born here was their son William, born most likely in the early 1660s in St. Mary’s County, Maryland. And the generations of this family born on this soil roll down the years:

• Generation 2. William and Frances

• Generation 3. Seth and Martha

• Generation 4. John and Sarah

• Generation 5. Elizabeth and John

• Generation 6. Elizabeth and William

• Generation 7. Elizabeth and Martin

• Generation 8. Martha Louisa and George

• Generation 9. MG and Martha

• Generation 10. Clay and Opal

• Generation 11. Hazel and Hugo

• Generation 12. Fred and Gayle

• Generation 13. Bobbi and Joel

• Generation 14. Sydney

Sydney Elizabeth. Generation 14.

And now about to set off on her own adventure, attending the University of Illinois at Chicago this fall.

What a joy to be able to be there, to witness — and to document — another line of our family history being written.