My mother was big into genealogy, however she tried to trace our family tree back to the Egyptians one time, & tried to tell me my pal and I were directly related to Cleopatra, but I wasn’t having any of it.
She then told me our European descendants founded Hillsboro, OR in the early 1740s, according to what she had found online… They enjoyed the mild winters & warm summers which made Oregon a rich farming area. I looked at her one afternoon as she was talking about our rich history, & asked her why my pal and I looked more like the Indians that once inhabited the Hillsboro, OR area? She stumbled & said that was just my dad’s side of the family. I reminded her how the Kalapuyans once lived in this section even before the Europeans arrived, but she poo-pooed that. The Kalapuyans were still a part of the Grand Ronde, even though several intermarried with other tribes, & some intermarried with the Europeans. She thought this proved that the Europeans were the most important, without the Kalapuyans, there would be no dad, & no me, but mom completely ignored that information. She was just cheerful her European descendants enjoyed the weather conditions in this area, & decided to stay… Her family came to Hillsboro, OR in the early 1900s & she had no reason to ever want to move anywhere else. I thanked her for making that decision. I enjoyed living in Hillsboro, OR, & I could not imagine living anywhere else, regardless of who my distant family was or wasn’t. I liked the weather my pal and I had in this area.