It was quite an eye-opener to help my mama do our family research. I'm a 9th generation South Carolinian, my folks were on the boats just behind the May Flower. The weren't uneducated people who died young as the history books and movies would have us believe! I have many decendants who lived close to the century mark!
I'm 52 and my maternal grandmother was born in the late 1800s and she died at 75 from an unnecassary medical procedure.