Friday, Jun. 22, 2007 - 6:40 p.m.

Was reading some stuff on my Scottish roots. The main points of interest are that a) all the Maitlands in Scotland are descended from one guy who was imported from Normandy in the 12th century, and b) all the Maitlands in the U.S. are descended from one of his descendants.

The original guy apparently came from Normandy, and his French name, before being Scottified, was "Mautalent", which means, "evil genius".

How cool is that? Now I can say I come from a family of evil geniuses. (That makes up for finding out that I'm really part French, part of the Norman invasion no less-- a colonizer through and through, it looks like).

And the first name of the first US ancestor was James. Same as my grandfather (and innumerable cousins and a nephew). Not that James is an unusual name, but it's just cool is all.

Genealogy is neat. Boring and picky to do, I imagine, but fun to read about once someone else has done all the work.

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