...Meeghan is tough...

She got this tattoo last year--designed it herself. In Hebrew. I don't have photos of her other tattoos--my other favorite is a medicine wheel with a buffalo skull in the center, and a lightning bolt going through the whole thing, as I recall. She designed it to match the design she created on her moccasins...at least 15 years ago. If she lets me photograph it, I will post it. She had this one on her "Facebook" or "My Space" so I figured she wouldn't mind if I posted it here. She writes:

"To add to my collection, but this has meaning. The middle word means family. Surrounding are the names of all my family members starting with my great grandmother and ending with my daughters."

While I personally don't care for tattoos, I think this is particularly awesome and certainly original. And since I don't even like testing my blood sugar level with one tiny stick of a needle, I must say that Meeghan is a lot tougher than I could ever be. If I ever decided to get a tattoo, it would have to be one of those temporary ones.

Speaking of Meeghan, today she called to say that she had gotten confirmation that her research into another branch of our family tree linking us back to the Revolutionary War, is correct. She was invited to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) this past year, once she provided documented proof tracing our lineage back to Captain Hope Lathrop, who lived in Toland, Connecticut and was in the Revolutionary War. Today her research and documentation proved correct once again; another branch traced back to Adoniram Grant (we are related to Ulysses S. Grant), who provided aid and clothing to colonial soldiers during the same time period. One of her next projects is to document the Lathrop branch back to a marriage between Reverend John Lathrop's daughter (can't remember her name) and Samuel Fuller, one of the original Mayflower passengers. She has information tracing Reverend Lathrop back to England prior to his arrival here in 1630, and the Grant family back to Scotland back to the 1500s. She has to have certain documentation in order beyond what she has right now.

This journey back through history came as a result of a couple of a few sentences my mom said to me when she was the age I am now--before Alzheimer's disease sucked the life right out of her brain, "My grandmother came across the country in a covered wagon and ended up in California. Her name was Sarah Helen Lathrop." From those two sentences, Meeghan has uncovered a treasure trove of incredible information that humbles our family and makes us all feel like underachievers. We are decendents of Ulysses Grant and related to Franklin Roosevelt (Delano). Also somehow related to the Stanford of Stanford University. Asahel Lathrop, Sarah's father, was one of the early settlers of Utah, but moved on away from the Mormon church, and opened up an inn or something in California. When the "Donner party" was stranded in the snow in mountains in California, he was one of the group of rescuers who went in search of survivors. I remember reading about the history of Donner Pass when we went on vacation growing up, and about the fate of so many of those stranded in the early winter snow. Little did I know our family had any attachment to this piece of history. Just thought I'd put that out there for you to read.