Obsessed with my "roots"

Ok, so all my life I have had this insatiable curiosity to know where I come from. I mean not where I was born or what my parents were like. I mean what or who gave me my physical attributes. I know my small stature comes from my great grandparents who were petite horse trainers/jockeys from France, I know my blue eyes come from my relatives from Whales, Scotland, and England. My hands and feet are most definitely small copies of my mom's much larger ones, my curly hair, eye shape, nose and hair are all from my Lebanese side, and my stubbornness is from the Brits as well. I mean who all these people really were. I think this curiosity started in higsh school when we had to trace back our heritage as far as we could, I went all the way back to the beginning of this country. I am somewhat ashamed to say that my relatives were "wealthy Tories" who believed that America was insane, and they had to flee to Nova Scotia where they were "seamen" and whalers hahahah!! Too bad they lost all the money the apparently had..damn. Unfortunately, I also found some other things they used to trade on their fleet of ships...but we won't go there...bad...
I've always meant to go visit our "cove" up there, tho I'm sure no one in my family owns any of that land anymore.
So then my family history popped up again when I was in college. There I was, sitting in class, minding my own business....when my great uncle popped up in my book...what? huh? Albert Pinkham Ryder..yup that's him, born in New Bedford MA to whalers. Hmmm interesting man, apparently my "eccentricities" and some of my artistic qualities come from that side of the family. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Pinkham_Ryder
Also bumped into that painting when I was visiting the art museum down in DC a few years ago.
No wonder I like to paint to music and dreams, and have this need to rework paintings over and over...and yes, I have my artwork all over the place...good thing Drew is such a neat freak. I could see myself getting old and totally lost in all my art. HAHAHA!!
As for the other side...don't know a lot about them. They are a mixture of French, Scottish, English, and Lebanese (hence my bad nose and crazy hair :) Hmm, the search continues, damn Ancestry.com charges for this info, already found my great grandmother on there....