Landed Gentry

I think I'm adopted.

Not really.  

In fact a better open to this tripe would probably be to ask my ancestors what the heck they were thinking.

Allow me to explain...

As far back as I can remember, my Aunt June was the family historian.  Both sides of the family too, in addition to being my Dad's sister, her husband, my uncle Don, was my Mom's brother.  That's how Andy and Ellie met, but that's a story for another time.  

Maybe.  

Probably not.  

But possibly.  

Don't hold your breath on that one.

Anyway, Aunt June was the "go-to" for family history and several years ago she made a pamphlet detailing what she knew about the Mains genealogy.  For some reason I had it stashed in my locker at work.  Don't ask, I don't know why.  But when I came across it a couple of weeks ago, I sat down and started flipping through it reading about my grandparents and my Dad's grandparents.  And, in there, I saw an ancestor that was born in New Jersey in 1765.  A great-great how ever many grandfather.  

And I thought to myself "holy crap we've been here a long time".  I never really paid that much attention to this kind of stuff in the past. But now, my curiosity was piqued (an underused word imho) so I decided a few days later to dig a little deeper.  

My cousin Judy (June's daughter) has taken over the role of family historian, and, through the wonder of the interwebz, has dug pretty deep (as has the photojournalist in the family, shout out to the D-I-L) and thanks to the well-known ancestry website, they've both uncovered quite a little bit of Mains family history.

Like, back in the day, my people ran with Robert The Bruce.  They were granted large tracts of land.  They had "Sir" in front of their first names.  They married into dynastic families.  They were kind of a big deal.  

Of course, in this instance, "back in the day" refers to the 90's.  

As in the 1290's.

As in the 13th Century.

THAT 1290's

So here's my question...

Where did we (and when I say "we" I mean "you people") go wrong?  What happened?  How is it that I grew up here in beautiful northern Illinois and not on the Scottish highlands?  

Where's my castle?  

Why do I not have serfs?

Do people even have serfs anymore?

I don't think I need a manservant, I mean I've been dressing myself for quite some time now, but still, I could have had one if you people upstream of me in the gene pool hadn't done something.  So what was it?  What did you do?  Some kind of mayhem or thuggery lost to the ages?  

I found a website that's apparently dedicated to the oulde (too much?) clan (I thought it was a nice touch, besides, you never know when good old 12th cousin 46 times removed the Earl of Upson Downham might read this) and this (totally made up title btw) is how my peeps were described.-

The Menzies’ are recorded as a relatively peaceful clan, predominately siding with law and order and the established Monarchy. Although surrounded by powerful neighbours, the Menzies held on to their inheritance without recourse to violent conflict. Differences with their neighbours were mainly resolved by diplomacy, litigation or convenient marriage and they became the oldest family in Strathtay with an unbroken descent in the direct main line down to 1910

So we've got "relatively peaceful" going for us and while siding with "established Monarchy" isn't necessarily my cup of tea (see what I did there?) I like the diplomacy aspect of my family's past.

But still, nothing to indicate what is, ultimately, my loss of title and land.

They stuck around the grounds more or less until 1600 when good old Josiah Means was born in County Cork, Ireland.  No clue why they went to Ireland and the old man died 44 years later in Scotland.  Josiah's grandson, born in Enniskillen in 1665 and died in New Jersey in 1742, was apparently the first of the lot to set foot here in the colonies sometime before the birth of a son in 1699.  

Again, what's the deal?

Not much of consequence once we got to the States, although there is a document that shows one of them received a pension (first familial drain on society, yaaay us!) for serving in the Revolutionary War.  That leads me to believe we lost our stuff pre-America.  

So.

What was it?

For any interested parties, feel free to post your thoughts.  I'm willing to adopt the most creative demise of the dynasty as my reality.

Fire away.

and (ironically)

Peace.