I love genealogy, and when I started digging into my family tree, I was expecting the usual things: farmers, coal miners, preachers, maybe a horse thief or two. What I did not expect was to discover that my ancestry is basically held together by Butts, Dicks, and Belchers. That’s not a metaphor. That’s literal.
I thought I had one Dick in the family. Turns out I have roughly 300. I have a very large Dick dynasty with hundreds of Dicks across generations, including George Washington Dick, Millard Fillmore Dick, Valentine Dick, and Green Barry Dick. There are Revolutionary War Dicks, Civil War Dicks, frontier Dicks, farming Dicks, and preaching Dicks. Honestly, this feels more like historical fan fiction.
I’m also a descendant of a whole Butt clan, including Addison Butt, Archibald Butt, Sarah “Sallie” Butt, William Harvey Butt… an entire respectable lineage of Butts! There was even a William Harrison Butt, otherwise known as Harry Butt. These family members were just out there trying to live their lives, unaware they’d someday become blog material.
Somewhere in Appalachia, around 1820, a serious group of adults gathered around a newborn and said, “Yes. Let’s name him Archibald Butt. That feels right.”
I also have kinfolk who are Belchers and more Fannys than I can count. At some point, I had to pause and reflect… as a therapist, I believe in honoring family systems. Yet, when your system includes generations of Butts, Dicks, and Fannys, you’re morally obligated to laugh a little.
Then there’s my grandpa: Omar Cortez Wesley. If you didn’t know better, you’d assume he rode a camel into Seville or penned poetry in Morocco. In reality, he grew up in rural Kentucky, probably barefoot half the time, surrounded by tobacco fields and chickens. Somewhere in the Middle East, there’s probably a guy named Billy Ray Abdul wondering how his family took such a turn.
My grandma’s name was Arzona. Not Arizona, but Arzona. She was born the year Arizona became a state, but they were in the backwoods of Kentucky without much formal spellin training, so somewhere northeast of Brownsville, in Straw, Kentucky, Arizona lost an I. Around here, we don’t always spell things right, and apparently, that tradition lives on in me.
My Family Didn’t Just Love America. They Named Their Kids After It. My people had a strong patriotic streak. And when I say strong, I mean they didn’t just wave flags, they baptized them. I’ve got multiple George Washingtons… Franklins everywhere. There is a Henry Clay, Chester Arthur Ashley, John Hancock, Christopher Columbus, Liberty, America, and a David Crockett Allison. My family tree doesn’t read like genealogy. It reads like a fourth-grade social studies curriculum.
The Foster families had many foster children. Some of my grandparents had as many as 18 or more children.
Then come the biblical, mythological, and just plain bold names. There are several Nimrods, Hannibals, Orion, Athanasius, Isham, Hiram. Delphi, Zerelda, Zerelza, Saphentonia, Pocahontas, Elzar, Lije, Olis, and Onnie. There is an Acey, Dicy, Icey, and Osie. At some point we stopped naming humans and started naming cartoon sidekicks.
We also had occupational surnames such as Baker, Mason, Gardener, Plumber, Potter, Tanner, Smith, Fisher, and Hunter. My ancestors didn’t need résumés. Their last name was their LinkedIn profile. If you were a Baker, you baked. If you were a Fisher, you fished. If you were a Plumber, congratulations, you just found your life purpose.
Meanwhile, I became a therapist, which explains why nobody in my tree prepared me for student loans.
We’ve got Longs (mercifully not married to Dicks). There are Pitts and Pluckers, Fuchs and Fuquas, which sound innocent until you read them out loud. Someone named Plucker walked this earth. I don’t know what he plucked, but I respect his confidence.
We’ve even got accidental celebrities: Kevin Clifton Bacon and Thomas Cruse. I don’t want to brag, but I’m loosely related to Kevin Bacon and Tom Cruise. The royalty checks have been delayed.
There’s a whole family of Jetts. Thomas Jett was a short man, so they called him Tom Thumb. We’ve also got Days and Knights, which feels less like genealogy and more like a Marvel phase.
And then there’s Hardin Sanders. Not Harland, but Hardin. A few pen strokes from generational wealth.
I now live in Corbin, Kentucky, where Colonel Harland Sanders started KFC. I’m also a Kentucky Colonel myself, and Hardin Sanders is my great-great-grandfather. His picture is attached to this Blog. If there were ever a cosmic setup for fried chicken inheritance, this was it. Unfortunately, none of this pays the electric bill.
Somewhere in the multiverse, my people own KFC. In this one, we just own stories.
In all this family humor, there are moments that stop me. Behind every funny name is someone who split firewood, buried children, walked miles to church, survived wars, raised families, and kept showing up. Some of my ancestors were born during the Civil War. Others during the Great Depression. Meanwhile, I’m complaining about a mix-up at the restaurant today.
Perspective will do that to you.
My family tree is full of George Washingtons, Nimrods, Bacons, Belchers, Jetts, Knights, Dicks, Fannys, and Butts. We were a syllable away from starting KFC. We didn’t spell Arizona correctly, and we didn’t conquer the Aztec empire. Instead, my family mostly raised kids, worked hard, went to church, buried our dead, and kept going.
Turns out I didn’t inherit money, but I did inherit stories. And maybe that’s the real takeaway.
Families aren’t about perfection. They’re about resilience, laughter, near-misses, creative spelling, and learning how to hold both joy and absurdity at the same time.
So, here’s my conclusion, backed by generations of Dicks, Fannys, Butts, and Belchers. Family should always be about having fun. If you can’t laugh together, you’re doing it wrong.
Dr. Martin Cortez Wesley