Goob

Don't you love it when you get distracted by family history? For example, in New York there's an island called Riker's Island- today it's a correctional center. But way back when the Dutch owned New York my direct family lived and owned it- my grandmother's maiden name is Ryker. Even before that, one of my great-great-great-something grandfathers had a brother who had a son who had a son, who's name was Maarten Schenck van Nydeggen, who served under William of Orange in the Eighty Year's War- and he switched from Dutch service to Spanish service and then back to Dutch before drowning trying to attack a castle.
That's just my mothers side- I know a lot less about my father's side, but just by searching on familysearch.com I got some fun prison results, all from Ireland. One person deserted from the english army, another ratted out someone with seditious documents, and a third I can't read yet, since they wrote it in really hard to read cursive.
Anyway, thanks for letting me rant. Do you guys have any cool ancestry stories that you would be willing to share?