Daniel, that is.

Just when you thought this was going to have something to do with Fight Club.

(Clarification: yep, Jack Daniel, the whiskey guy. The popular perception is that it's "Jack Daniels", but check out where the apostrophe is on the label.)

I've known for a few years that I was somehow distantly related to Jack Daniel, but I never knew what the real connection was. So, a couple of days ago, I finally took the time to sort out the answer.

Turns out that his sister Louisa is my great-great-great grandmother.

And that struck me a little weird. I never had any clue the lineage was that direct - I always thought he was a cousin or something. And that's about as direct as it gets - Jack didn't have any kids.

Not that it's that special, as it were. Assuming a wide branching family tree, there are easily several hundred people as equally related. I know at least three of them personally.

The odd part is - I don't drink. Kinda takes the fun out of it, right?

This genealogy stuff is bizarre, at best. Flipping through the "overview" that my brother put together as an eighth grade history project, it turns out that my 9xgreat-grandfather is Major Simon Willard, who founded Concord, Massachusetts, in 1635. The interesting thing is that it technically allows me to become a member of the Willard Family Association.

Seriously, how bizarre is that? That group has reunions and such. What actually goes on in there? There have to be several thousand people who can claim the same lineage. That voice in the back of my head says that I should show up to a reunion wearing a Nirvana t-shirt and just say that I'm there "cause I can". "I'm a direct descendant, so nyaaah."

I'm not that evil. Really.

I guess I can understand people being curious about genealogies and such. Granted how well-traced that side of my family is, it is somewhat interesting to poke through and see who all I'm related to.

But it's amazing to me to see the people who get outright obsessed with knowing who/where they came from. That seems especially prevalent among people who have no idea. It's as if their lives have no meaning if they don't know this stuff. As oddly cool as some of this stuff is, I could certainly take it or leave it.

My dad's side of the family, as far as I know, is largely untraced. I know that my dad has, on more than one occasion, bought genealogy software and such. Honestly, though, I have no idea what he does with it. (I've never actually seen him use any of it.)

Maybe the balance is why I don't really care. My mom's side of the family is pretty seriously traced, and there's a book somewhere in their house (though I don't know where) of a good portion of it. (I seem to remember poking through it in my youth and getting completely lost.)

As far as I'm concerned, I'll stick with my brother's eighth grade report. Even if he did spell it "geneology" in giant letters on the title page. (Oddly, he taped two one pound British notes to the second to last page. A bribe, perhaps?) And even if he did include our first cat. Ahead of me.