Where do I sign up? How come your family's getting a slice of that pie and I've never heard of it before? What, one of your distant great-to-the-Nth grannies sleep with Atilla or something? Who you gotta know?

I need to get moving on this, too. The 800-year term of my maternal bloodline's payment from the French government for the sacking of the family castle in 1207 expires next year. Thanks for the reminder!

Hmmm....what else can take up the slack? Well, there's that family lore about a female ancestor and John Wesley back in England...what's the net worth of the Methodist Church these days? Wish I had some Catholic ancestry, Protestants are poor as church mice compared to the Vatican. No red-faced altar boys in the family tree to my knowledge.

The paternal-maternal side came from Belgium...hey Raoul, any benefits I'm missing out on? Maybe I should go for dual-citizenship?

The paternal-paternal side got kicked out of Belfast in the 1600s, maybe the Brits owe me? Naw, those guys were Scots come to colonize, better keep quiet lest the Irish start wanting reparations from me. But wait, maternal-paternal came from Ireland, so I guess the claims would cancel out. Wouldn't they?

Come to think of it, this is really a dangerous precedent (aside from being a gnarly mess). What are the odds that the ancestors of any two of us feuded at one time or another? Pretty high. We'll never settle the accounts at this late date. I'd call it a statistical draw and find something new to fight about. No problem, we're all descended from a long line of survivors of feuds and quite good at it by now.