My name is Jarrod Edward Whittington and I was born on October 4, 1976 at 10:23 AM in Fairfield County Hospital in Lancaster, Ohio.

My parents are Jeffrey Whittington, from Thurston, OH and Deborah Whittington (Foltz), Baltimore, OH.

Their parents were Robert Calvin Whittington and Patricia Lou Reedy, Darwin Bader Foltz and Dorothy Eileen Roshon, all are buried in Ohio.

Their parents were Raleigh Arval Whittington and Myrtle K. Reedy, Charles Edward Reedy and Mary Fern Dickson, Clarence Foltz and Faun Lilian Bader, John Wesley Roshon and Maude Pearl Lanter, all are buried in Ohio.

Their parents were Walter Lewis Whittington and Nora Oceola Reedy, Edward Reedy and Cora [Unknown], Charles Reedy and Allie Gurile, Silas Edwin Dickson and Ida C. [Unknown], Lewis Wetzel Foltz and Emmaline Will Huntwork, Samuel Lafayette Bader and Mary Anne "Mollie" Goss, John Jacob Roshon and Fannie Francis Spirege, John J. Lanter and Emma F. Griggs.

My branch of the Whittington family can be traced back to Thomas Whittington, Sr, who was born in London, England in 1740 and came to the colonies at a young age. The Reedys, or Riedi, can be traced back to Switzerland (there is a curiously high number of them in my family tree, whatever that means. My Dad calls it the "family wreath"). Nora Oceola Reedy, via her mother, Sarah Phipps, has been traced back to Charlemagne, King of Franks. There are also at least two known full-blooded Native Americans on my Dad's side. The Foltz (or Voltz) family came from Germany (duh), and were among the early wave of German immigrants. The Baders are traced back to Nicholas Bader, who arrived from Switzerland and settled the area around what is now Baltimore, Ohio (my hometown) in 1805. The Roshons are French, traceable to Jean Rochon of Limousin in the 17th century.

So, in other words, my American roots are pretty deep. In most cases, they go back at least 7 generations, not including the native americans, of whom I am 1/16th descended. However, a genetic test of my Y-chromosome (direct male-line lineage, or my father's father's father's father, etc.) revealed that we were of Mediterranean origin, possibly Southern Italy or even Israel. Whether this is due to an infidelity, adoption, Jewish immigration to England, or even the Roman occupation of Britain 2000 years ago, I have no idea. But Whittington doesn't sound very Italian to me.

In any case, I'm about 94% European. Which means that my ancient ancestors migrated into Europe from the Central Asian Steppes when the ice sheets retreated. Themselves immigrants from the Middle East, and before that, Africa. All of them children of some genetic Adam or mitochondrial Eve, the fortunate by-product of millions of years of primate evolution. Descendents of the tiny mammals who hid underground when cosmic debris evicted the dinosaurs from existence. Sophisticated progeny of the earliest vertebrates, who followed the chain that leads all the way back to the beginning of life itself, the complicated goo that never suspected what may come. Itself a toxic collection of molecules expelled from a supernova billions of years prior. We are stardust, we are golden, blah blah blah...

Anyway, yeah, I play guitar and sing and write songs and I live in Brooklyn.