Genealogy

Hey Steph,

 I have something to confess. Saturday, I spent nine hours straight doing family history research. And yes, most of those hours were during prime social time. It just happened without me noticing. I know that sounds crazy, but I started working on family history work and six hours later I noticed my clock. I thought it had been about two hours. I was wrong.

      And I wasn’t ready to call it quits yet. I was totally geeking out over genealogy. Now, I’m a fairly passionate person. I can get (and have gotten) so excited about Greek-style yogurt that I literally jumped for joy like a little kindergartner. I love to read and have read for hours. I love playing my guitar and singing at the top of my lungs. Yet, even with all my love for these activities and items, I can’t imagine doing or focusing on any of them straight for nine hours, especially without noticing time pass.

Genealogy: an it, which I am doing; the study of both past family and yourself

      What drove this gluttonous adventure into genealogy? Well, you don’t know this, but Dad has asked me to do a secret mission for his birthday. He wants me to plan a New England getaway for Mom and him that focuses on the locations our ancestors lived in. (Isn’t it great how we could probably convince our parents to go anywhere if it had to do with family history?)

       Well, as I began working on this, I decided to take it to the next level. This would not be just a map of cities to visit with maybe a few sites of interest and a list of family names. I was going to go all-out Elizabethtown-style on this. In case you have forgotten this quirky and somewhat forgettable film in which Orlando Bloom plays neither a pirate nor an elf—yup, it’s just about the only movie that he plays a “normal” person—the movie involves a man (Bloom) on a solo cross-country journey spreading his dad’s ashes. His wacky friend, who brings levity to his life, plans the trip for him with a scrapbook binder full of odd landmarks to visit, opportunities to dance alone in the middle of nowhere, and a music playlist for the whole journey. Here’s a bit of the movie if you’re wanting more of a visual (You really only need to watch the first 30 seconds or so, unless you’d like to see Orlando cry about his daddy, then you may continue.):

       Anyway, I set to work making this the vacation plan of all vacation plans. I dusted off my book layout skills and started compiling information about each of the vacation spots. Stop number 1: Plymouth, MA.

Steph, did you know that we are related to both to the physician and surgeon for the Pilgrims and the first English murderer in America. The murderer, John Billington, also claims the title for being the first Englishman hung in America. When it comes to deaths and firsts in America, we are quite famous.

       Another of our ancestors was only three when she travelled in the Mayflower with her parents. Like so many of that first group, both her parents and aunt and uncle died that first winter. It’s quite remarkable that she lived on through all of that.

       This is just the tip of the iceberg. I learned so much in those nine hours—too much to share in one post. Research is easy when each of your ancestors has their own Wikipedia page. What is it about family history that could keep me engrossed like an obsessive Justin Bieber fangirl?

       Well, I think part of it is the history. I know I’m preaching to the choir since you majored in history, but the stories of our communal past are a part of knowing who we are as individuals. Ancestral or not, the stories of the Pilgrims suggest a responsibility to make good of your life—a story that is repeated in the Irish immigrants coming in the 1800s and Mexican immigrants coming today. I think it is easy to take lightly the ideas and culture we have in America because of the efforts of our communal ancestry who chose to uproot their lives for what they hoped would be a better one. But we shouldn’t take this lightly. Nearly half of the Mayflower passengers died within months of landing at Plymouth. They left behind a country with more than a thousand years of history and civilization to come to a country with no Western buildings or known resources. That’s quite the courageous spirit and forgetting what they did and why they did it makes us far less resourceful than they were.

       Another part is personal history. I recently read this article about family stories and its integral role to raising well-adjusted, happy children. The article said it was important that we share not just the happy stories but the stories of how our family overcomes hard times. These stories help children find strength in their heritage to push through and do hard things.

       When I read about how Samuel Eaton came across the Atlantic as an infant only to lose his mother while still living aboard the Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor and then lose his father 13 years later, I can almost feel Samuel’s strength running in my blood. If he could survive in wilderness America alone at 13, I can surely find strength to go and talk to that guy I’m too scared to talk to—and hopefully to do much harder things.

Cheers,

Amanda Kae

What family stories bring you strength? Why does sharing stories matter to you?