I suppose it was inevitable.
I'd resisted it for years, but in the end ... well ... resistance was
futile. It was predestined: I am Southern and I am Celtic; I like
historical things; I enjoy puzzles. It consumed -- pleasantly, mind you
-- the energies of my aunt, Margaret Haile, and I see how it dominates the
thinking of my cousin, Norma Morgan. It's addictive. It is fun, but
it is frustrating; it raises as many questions as it answers. It is ...
Genealogy. And if you think
it's not important, then it's a fairly safe bet that you are not old enough for
it to be important -- yet!
When I was very young, I spent a
tremendous amount of time with my parents, especially my mother. We lived
on a cattle ranch outside of town (Arcadia, Florida), and neither of my parents
was much of a socialite anyway. My brother and I had frequent
opportunities to visit our paternal grandparents, who lived a few miles away on
a cattle ranch on another side of town. We had occasional visits from my
father's aunt, Dexter, who lived in North Carolina. We also often saw our
maternal grandparents, and had extended stays with them during the
summertime. In short, we spent a great deal of time with family; we were
very comfortable around adults -- a perfect opportunity to really know
them. But we were too young to even realize what we might want to know
about them.
Now my parents and grandparents are
all gone, and I suppose it's in part because I miss them and want to feel
connected with them, but recently I have spent a lot of time trying to uncover
my ancestral past. Poring over old census records has revealed a family
structure that is quite unlike anything in our modern experience. Looking
at immigration records, I wonder what it was that spurred a family into leaving
the country that their kin had inhabited for a thousand years, to risk an
arduous journey across the Atlantic Ocean. What would it take to make me
do such a thing? In the new land: generations of people who were born, lived
an entire lifetime, then died, all within the same small community.
Others who began their lives in that community, following the same pattern, but
then set out by Conestoga wagon for a new frontier -- another dangerous and
difficult adventure -- why?
I'm luckier than most amateur
genealogists, in that both Margaret and Norma, on my dad's side, have already
done a lifetime of work that I can use as reference. In similar fashion,
I have the work of Dr. Guy Funderburk, a distant cousin of my mother's, from
which to draw. I'm especially blessed to have memoirs written by my
maternal grandmother; though she never did complete the work, it is not only a
valuable tool, but a poignant glimpse into my near past; in some ways, it helps
me to understand of her -- why?
How? How did the Depression
affect my parents and grandparents? How did the Civil War affect my
great-great grandparents? How did the American Revolution ... the Potato
Famine ... the Highland Clearances affect those generations?
And why? and how? have these events
shaped me?
If you're a young person reading
this, start asking questions now. Make time; believe me, if you wait
until you realize it's important to you, you'll have waited too long. If
you're a bit older, perhaps already with grandchildren, don't wait for them to
ask -- and don't offer, either, because you'll likely get your feelings hurt --
just write it down; gather those old pictures and mementos, because they'll be
of incalculable value to your family some day. Believe me, the memories
of trips to Disney World and clowns at birthday parties will pale in comparison
to the enhanced memory of who you were.
As for my own search, though it's
fascinating, I'll try really hard not to let it take me over! It does
seem to be something that can't be done well by "dabblers." It
requires a tremendous amount of concentration and concentrated effort.
It's almost impossible to stop in the midst of researching a particular
individual or family or event; the times I've tried to do so, I've lost ground
and had to backtrack. So aggravating! Among the more interesting
relatives I've discovered: dispossessed German royalty who, after plots and
machinations worthy of Shakespeare, escaped across the Atlantic, only to
drown off the coast of the Carolina colony. Talk about a
tragedy!
Crowns and castles and dreams of
lost inheritances notwithstanding, so far, the prize for Most Intriguing
Character goes to a Tennessean named Catherine who, at the age of 16, was wooed
and won by a beguiling and worldly stranger. Though her family initially
disapproved of the match, they, too, were won over by his artful manner.
So completely did they fall under his spell that, when he began to speak in
glowing terms of the great opportunities to be had in the new state of Texas,
they sold their property and accompanied Catherine and her new husband on a
trip westward. Sometime after the birth of her first child, however,
Catherine discovered that her new husband was also the husband of another
woman. Heartbroken and outraged, she had her bigamist husband put in jail
and, despite the fact that she was expecting another child, she set out to
return to her native Tennessee. She put her most cherished possessions in
a cloth bag, dressed in her husband's clothes, strapped his pistol to her
waist, saddled his best horse and rode home. Woe be unto anyone who dared
cross her during her journey! Her second husband, by whom she bore six
more children, was a casualty of the Civil War. She married a third time
and had five more children ... one of whom was my great-grandfather.
Catherine, my great-great
grandmother; she sounds tough -- I like to think that, somehow, she passed some
of that toughness on to me. But at any rate, isn't it a heck of a
story!
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