52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week # 26 Theme - Identity

The word Identity would normally make me think of an individual discovery, but my entry is for a whole family line. When I was growing up, my father, Dan Griffin, in Oklahoma, would say "Our Griffin family is NOT the Virginia Griffins."  It stuck in my mind and when I began genealogy searching, I kept it as a clue.  My knowledge of his Griffin family stopped with my Gt Grandfather, Samuel Young Griffin, who was a Union Veteran and died in Kansas, where he had homesteaded.  As we traced his heritage, and the "Identity" of this family, we found his father and grandfather in an area of Virginia that would become West Virginia.  But Daddy said we were NOT the Virginia Griffins.  Further research showed that our Griffin ancestors came from Connecticut before claiming land in Bath/ Pocahontas County in West Virginia.  Before Connecticut, our immigrant Griffin came from Wales in the 1600s.  I believe that family tradition had passed along the "Not Virginia Griffins" because Virginians would have been Southern sympathizers.  The area of our family was in a Union area. Some families even being split by their loyalties.  My father and grandfather knew of the Union Veteran, Samuel Griffin, and wanted to carry on that conviction.  I am proud of that identity and those who carried it.  The Griffin name is still being passed along in given names of many descendants.