Edgar Allan Poe's Genealogy

Edgar Allan Poe’s genealogy is important to understand Edgar Allan Poe's paternal grandfather is David Poe. He was born in Ireland around 1743, and his parents moved to Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, he met and married Poe's grandmother, Elizabeth Cairnes. Elizabeth was born in 1756. They moved to Baltimore together and set up a store; when the American colonies started to revolt, he fought in the Revolutionary War for his country. Mrs. Arnold, Poe's grandmother, showed up on the stage on February 28, 1791 and left the stage in England on June 13, 1795. David Poe grew up in Baltimore after his birth on July 18, 1784, and he grew up being expected to go into law. He went into acting instead and made his first professional acting job a success

Before he was in school, lost both of his parents (Encyclopedia of World Biography). David Poe was not a successful actor. He notorious for being drunk on stage and off-stage. On December 8th, 1811, Poe's mother, a successful actor herself, died of disease. The newspaper praised her as it said "the Stage as been deprived of one of its chief ornaments;” David Poe, Edgar's father and actor, passed on around December 10, 1811. The accounts of his death vary from days to weeks, but the consumption of alcohol is his killer (Annals).

There was a fire at the Richmond theater which killed 72 people, including the governor. With those 72 people, most of which were well-known, there were a lot of good kids that were now orphaned, and other good families decided to take them in. Although Edgar wasn't a part of the fire, he got to live with a good family as well, the Allan's

By August 2nd, the Allan's and Poe arrived back in Richmond. When they returned, they stayed at the home of Charles Ellis; during that time, Thomas Ellis, his son, and Edgar become close friends. Edgar taught Thomas how to shoot, swim, and skate. Poe was back in school under an Irishman named Joseph H. Clarke. During his stay in England, he had learned, in Latin, to decline nouns in the first, second, fourth, and fifth and basic adjectives such as bonus, bona, bonum. Under Joseph, he read Ovid, Caesar, and Virgil. He was good at literature; however, he was at odds against math. He did not study much, but he succeeded nevertheless. Poe was the best language student at Clarke's school in Latin, but Nat Howard was the best classicist compared to Poe. During summer vacation, Poe sent Clarke a letter in Latin, showing his skills with the language. He also learned from Clarke Homeric Greek and in Latin, Horace and Cicero's De Oficiis. Clarke and Poe remained lifelong friends after Clarke school shut down. After Clarke's school closed, Poe went to a school whose principal was William Burke, who was another Irishman. He was a good student and was never reprimanded in school. Jane Standard, a classmate’s mother, was kind to Poe and showed him some of the strongest affection of his life (Annals). Mrs. Stanard died on April 28, 1824 which rocked Poe to the core. He even visited her grave with