How incredibly unlikely is your birth?

Genealogy is fascinating. There is the aspect of learning about the lives of my ancestors, what they did, whether they fought in wars, et cetera. There is the thrill of finding out I am a descendant of someone who fought in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, and then finding someone on a different line who was an Abolitionist and used their home as part of the Underground Railroad. There is the even more fascinating consideration that eventually, two families that presumably would have been completely opposed ideologically on the issue of slavery, would come together in marriage (albeit a few generations down the line). It's incredibly interesting to find how all these events eventually culminate into my own existence.

My Great Great Great Grandfather, William L. McGaughy, supplied 8 sons to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Some of them died. Fortunately for me, my Great Great Grandfather, Henry Clay McGaughy, did not. However, neither of these individuals escaped the Civil War unscathed. William L.'s plantation lay between the paths of both contending armies and was devastated. So, William L. decided to move to Texas. George Washington McGaughy, William L.'s father, went to Texas to consider a move after the Civil War. However, George Washington McGaughy was not impressed and went back to Mississippi. Many of William L's sons decided to stay behind in Mississippi as well. Had William L. or Henry Clay decided to do the same, I would not be here today.

There are a number of other stories that had to happen in such an exacting way in order to facilitate my birth. Had my grandpa, Dexter McGaughy, not died in that car crash, would Dad have ever met Mom? It's hard to say.

If William McGaughey, the Great Grandfather of William L. McGaughy, never took the boat from Scotland to America back in 1738, neither of the two stories above would have taken place, and my birth would never have happened. You wouldn't be reading this blog post right now.

It only gets more and more exact the further back I go. Eventually, my existence is dependent on literally thousands of people. Going back 12 generations means that 8,190 people had to choose where they were going to live, who they were going to marry, when they were going to have children, et cetera. Everything in their entire life had to go just a certain way or else I might not exist. And that only takes it back to around the 17th Century! My ancestors quite obviously go back further than that.


Knowing that I will be a father soon makes me consider all of the things that had to go just a certain way in my life in order for my unborn child to exist. If I had never gone to Detroit for training on that Walmart Photo Equipment, I never would have traveled to Guymon, OK, where I met my wife, Melissa. Had I never attended those silly LAN parties back in High School, I never would have been recommended for the Computer Repair Pro job in the first place, and therefore never would have gone to Detroit. Had Dad not put that box of computer parts in my room, I might not have taken the interest in computers like I did, which means I never would have been looking for the Computer jobs in the first place. I could go on ad nauseam. The point here is that any particular person's conception is incredibly unlikely, and that doesn't even consider the biological factors that must take place.

Melissa and I are going to see a specialist next week in Oklahoma City. The fact that we can travel that far to see someone for a pregnancy is pretty remarkable in and of itself, but consider how much more unlikely the births of people 100 years ago must have been without all the medical intervention afforded us today. Vitamins and Dietary Supplements to help the baby's development were not available. Ultrasounds were not available. Many things were not available that makes the average pregnancy more likely to be successful.

Being able to get a glimpse of the types of lives my ancestors lived before me gives me the desire to live life in a way that would not only honor them, but honor my descendants as well. I have certainly made my fair share of mistakes, anyone has, but hopefully I can live up to the bar set by my parents, grandparents, and so on. Life is beautiful, people, and I intend to make the most of it.

Edit: Dan Nickolie posted the following on the Genealogy Facebook Page today (12 September 2013). It seemed relevant, so I decided to throw it up here: