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It's not everyone who can boast of an ancestor who was once part of a political slogan. Paul Grundy, who works in human resources, has traced his paternal ancestors back to the 16th Century and his maternal side to 1632. One of those antecedents was Felix Grundy, a senator from Tennessee and the Attorney General under President Martin Van Buren. Federalists who opposed the war of 1812 claimed it “was instigated by Madison, Grundy, and the devil,” said Paul.
He is a member of Haplogroup R1b M343, Western Europe's major lineage. Members of this group are direct descendants of Cro Magnon people who migrated west and north as the ice retreated at the end of the last Ice Age.
Another of Paul's ancestors was Prudence Crandall, who championed education for blacks in Connecticut in the 1820s. That was not a popular cause at the time, and Prudence faced criminal charges for some of her activities. In 1995, however, she was proclaimed Connecticut's official State Heroine.
The Genographic Project was “a great thing to do,” said Paul. “I am sure my ancestor Prudence Crandall would approve as a way of bringing people together.”
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