Great pitfalls of ignorance or misapprehension

Huh.  The things you discover.

Doing a little genealogical work on 10th Great-Grandfather Samuel Wilbore (1595-1656) and discover that, according to Wikipedia:

Notable descendants of Samuel Wilbore include Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, American hero of the Great Lakes during the War of 1812; his younger brother Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who compelled the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854; and Stephen Arnold Douglas who debated Abraham Lincoln in 1858 before a senate race and later lost to him in the 1860 presidential election. Rhode Island colonial Deputy Governor George Hazard is also a descendant.

I have read a great deal of maritime history.  I have read more than a couple of books on Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and Great Lakes in the War of 1812.  I have read more than half a dozen accounts of Commodore Matthew C. Perry, his Black Ships, and the opening of Japan to the West in 1854.  I did not know that the Perrys were obscurely distant cousins.  

But the shameful thing is, I am not sure I have ever connected or distinguished Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and Commodore Matthew C. Perry.  I don't think I even knew they were brothers.  Or, at least, I am pretty sure I never registered that they were brothers.  I can't imagine, as much as I have read, that it was never mentioned.  

I think I have had an amorphous Commodore Perry, first half of the nineteenth century, in my mind and that's it.  Ah well.  A useful reminder that as much as we think we know, there are still great pitfalls of ignorance or misapprehension.