This is Westover Plantation, which was restored and can be toured in Charles City County in Virginia, just south of Richmond. Westover is the ancestral home of the Byrd family, one of those first families of Virginia. Very distantly, I seem to be related to the Byrd family through my momma's family. About four generations back the name of Stubblefield crops up and if you follow that bunny trail back a couple of generations you find the Beverlys, who are related to a Robert Beverly, who was an early colonial historian, apparently, and who was related by marriage to the Byrds. This puts my momma in some high cotton, beyond her predominate Ulster Irish roots. As Kate says, we must have known how to 'marry up'. I suppose that is true. For every Byrd and Beverly, you've got some other family name re-leveling the playing field.
That's the melting pot of America. You can only hold your head so high.
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