Maybe it's in the genes.

Earlier this year, I began to do some geneological research on my mother's side of the family.  A few of us had done some on Dad's side (from Ohio), but we didn't know much about Mom's Kentucky relatives except a few hints and legends.  What I found was at times fascinating and at others, appalling.  My mother was very proud of being Irish ........but we're not, I found.  Not a drop.  Like many or most of the settlers in this part of the country, we are Scots-Irish, Scots who came to the New World via Ireland.  One of the heartwarming things I found while doing the research was this:

This is Rebecca Witten Graham's spinning wheel.

Rebecca Witten Graham was my 4th Great-Grandmother.  She was born in 1775 in Virginia, married John Graham in 1803, and moved to what is now Floyd County (in present-day Emma) KY in 1805.  She died in 1843.  The wheel was passed down from mother to daughter, and several generations later, with no more daughters to inherit, it is on loan and display in the Samuel May House in Prestonsburg, KY.  

The title of this post notwithstanding, that Rebecca had a spinning wheel is no surprise - everyone had to spin then, or they had no cloth!  But still, I like to think I am carrying on some family heritage when I sit down at my wheel and spin, seven generations later.