Liz Finds Out She’s Related to Someone on an Ancestry.com Commercial

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I was late to work on Thursday because I had to stop and dig after seeing a new Ancestry.com commercial.

I've mentioned it before on the show that I have a very "American History" family background on both sides of my family. My mother's side is the American dream story – long ago a young Irish boy made the trip to America under indentured servitude and started a family that would be involved in the Civil War, ride and own across now historic land on the back Abraham Lincoln's horse as Abe made his way to the White House and even have the first woman to run and own a business in DC.

I have a great great grandfather who was an officer in Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders and a great grandfather who was the first Federal Bankruptcy Judge in the United States. My grandmother is a true Washingtonian, and she has more stories about presidents and happenings in DC than anyone I know.

However, on my dad's side we're related to George Washington...yes, the George Washington. We used to be told all the time but never really got into details until I did a project in college. I called up my grandma and asked if she could help me with the lineage, and I'm so glad I did because now that's she gone I have it in writing, her writing – our past that connects us to our very first President of the Unites States. So where does this Ancestry.com commercial come into play? Emily.

Emily, the star of the commercial, walks you through finding leaves and clicking them to find her way to good old George and on her trek she lists off the very person that connects us to Washington, The Ball family.

I couldn't believe my ears. Did she really just say Mary Ball? She couldn't have. I had to stop what I was doing and find that commercial (unfortunately, my DVR doesn't rewind live TV in my room) and compare it to my handwritten family tree. There was her saying Mary Ball and me looking at Mary Ball, Washington's mother. I had found an unknown family member without even having to register at Ancestry.com.

My grandma was so awesome she wrote it out many ways for me! You can see that through her father's side (the Riggles) we start the trek back to the Ball family. She even has the details of when Washington was born and his occupation! This is a ton of information compared to what a lot of families that want to know where they came from have and I'm so grateful she knew it all and was able to document it.

So where do I go from here? How do I find Emily? The obvious answer is register at Ancestry.com, but where is the fun in that? Twitter search, Facebook search, hope this story gets picked up on Reddit? I haven't decided yet, but I do know that if this is how the journey starts, I can't wait to see how it ends!