I’ll Pack Plenty of Clean Skivvies, Jeans and Socks
Sam Venable
Department of Irony
 |
|
William de Venables of Bradwall |
The upper crust of Cheshire, England is on official notice: Any day now, Cuzzin Sam is headed your way to claim his rightful inheritance.
Why? Because spit doesn’t lie.
A few months ago, my wife bought me a kit from the website Ancestry.com. Following the directions, I spat into a little test tube gizmo that was included in the packet and shipped it to the lab. This gave the folks at Ancestry a sample of my DNA.
The results just came back. And, by gum, they reinforced everything I’ve ever been told about my lineage.
All my life, I’d heard that we Venables originated in France. We filtered into England during the Norman conquest—quite likely in search of cheaper hooch; that French wine is high-dollar stuff—and somehow found ourselves caught up in the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
With the neighborhood gone plumb to hell, English aristocrats threw up their hands in dismay. Too bad for them. Our clan began, uh, “intermingling” with the locals—you know what they say about the savoir faire of French lovers—and soon we established a pretty good toehold in the new digs.
Our surname back then was Venables, with an “s.” Somewhere along the line, the “s” was abandoned.
Probably, this was a technical error by some boneheaded British court clerk whose grasp of the alphabet was lacking, but we were too polite to make a stink of it and let the matter drop. Or maybe we were too interested in producing new generations, if you catch my drift. In any event, “Venable” spread through western Europe.
Ancestry.com agrees.
According to my spit, 90 percent of our line traces back to England, Wales, Isle of Man, Ireland and Scotland, along with a smattering in Germany, Norway and Sweden.
I began tickling computer keys and uncovered a treasure trove of long-lost cousins—with and without the “s.”
Among them was Letitia de Venables, circa 1240, the “Heiress of Wymincham.” Her grandfather was Sir William Venerables, circa 1174. (Before the “s” got dropped, apparently they also had to lop off the “er.” Geez, people! How ’bout a little uniformity?
In any case, Sir William Venerables was “Lord of Wymincham.”)
I couldn’t determine what’s left of Wymincham these days. Maybe they now spell it “Wincham.” All I know is I saw a lot of pictures of castles on the computer. I’ll worry about the details when I get there.
In fact, I don’t care if the spelling is Venable. Or Venables. Or Venerables. Or Wymincham. Or Wincham.
If Cuzzin Sam went to all that trouble of spitting into a test tube, the least his Old Country relatives can do is cut him in on a piece of the action.
Sam Venable is an author, comedic entertainer, and humor columnist for the Knoxville (TN) News Sentinel. His latest book is “The Joke’s on YOU! (All I Did Was Clean Out My Files).” He may be reached at sam.venable@outlook.com.