Delta was "tickled pink" to learn that she was from one of the oldest families in south Louisiana. Among Cajuns, it is the equivalent of "coming over on the Mayflower" to New Englanders.
My brother and I spent years tracing our family tree. Turned up our great-grandfather and his family were well known stage performers at the end of the 19th century and travelled all over the Commonwealth. One of the daughters was a superstar in India. Our grandfather (from the third marriage) had told us nothing of this.
My wife started on hers and was almost immediately given the tree all the way back to a couple of convicts who were "transported" in 1799-1801. We don't know about the man but the 17 year old woman was literally convicted of stealing a loaf of bread which is the cliched reason for being transported. (It appears she actually took the whole breakfast setting including the tablecloth.) Initially sentenced to hang, the sentence was commuted to sixteen years in the colony.
They have their names on the founding families plaque at Darling Harbour in Sydney. They had ten children and the next two generations in my wife's line had ten children each. By the time the matriarch died she had 550 living descendants. My wife has a lot of cousins in Australia.
There is a saying from way back that there was a Davis behind every bush in New South Wales. A Davis was a member in the gang of our great folklore bushranger hero Ned Kelly. Like Delta, my mother-in-law was well impressed, as having convict ancestry is a badge of honour here.