At this time I'm announcing a Holidays Hiatus from Blogging.
I'll be back in the new year; can't image the day I'm not interested in genealogy. I like sharing what I've discovered or learned over many years with you too much to quit.
Don't know about you, but it's time to do some filing, some decorating, some entertaining, and some laying around doing nothing (OK, how about just sleeping in?) Most Americans seem to feel the same way. Google Bloggers always experiences less interest in reading and writing blogs at this time of the year.
Since I've posted so very much information in the past, I encourage you, if you're in the mood, to explore my posts by using the archive and search features on the sidebar! Most of the information is useful for your family history research and writing, or alternatively, your interest in spirituality - reincarnation.
I was about sixteen years old when I first heard about reincarnation and it made sense to me right away, but it was here and there over many years that I started reading around about it and came to understand the Hindu idea of transmutation, in which a soul progresses through the animal kingdom into humans as it advances, and read about the notions of the Buddhists and other religious and spiritual groups who have and do believe that the soul incarnates into many bodies - many lives - in order to learn and progress spiritually.
Over the last decade or so, using hypnosis, more people are exploring the possibility that they lived before. It's a mystery really, but there are some people who seem to recall quite a bit and the idea is to document as much as possible that comes out in these sessions and then do the research genealogically. There is a limitation to this, of course. The past life must have been in a time and place in which people were keeping the records we use now.
Last year I met a woman who specializes in past life regressions and she said that her interest in the subject began in her teenage years during her winters in Alaska, where there was a lot of time to stay inside and explore. Her attitude was that since regressions work to help people heal, why question how it all works.
A couple weeks ago I was sitting in a waiting room and got to talking to a stranger. He said "Someone is telling me you're very family oriented." I hadn't been talking about anything personal, not the holidays, not family, and maybe he was just trying to get to know me more, but I wondered later "Why did he say, someone's telling him? Maybe he's a natural psychic?" So I laughed and said, "I'm really into genealogy and family history research and writing." I wasn't sure he knew what I meant. Then he said "There are many people behind you." I think he meant that he saw a lot of ancestor spirits standing behind me.
Some people would be a little scared by this interaction, a stranger speaking this way, but I wasn't. I knew that it all might be a way of making me tell him personal information and I knew I didn't want to share too much with a stranger. When I got home I thought about it a lot. Of course I want to believe that my ancestors are "behind" me as in being supportive, and that there are people who I've never met in this life - and a dozen or two whom I have - that will be there for when it is my time.
I do believe the ancestors (who are not in current incarnations) are witness to some of our lives; they've got a lot of people to check up on so not all the time!
Whatever you believe, have yourself a lovely holiday season!
I look forward to 2014!
03 December 2013
01 December 2013
28 November 2013
25 November 2013
THANKSGIVING GATHERINGS and THE 1940 CENSUS - WILL THE FAMILY STORIES EVER BE BACKED BY DOCUMENTATION?
This year the 1940 census has given us so much to look forward to, so much to research and add to our family history writing and genealogy research.
Thanksgiving gatherings are a good time to talk about the family history and to add stories to your research.
I like to add family stories, testimonials, oral histories, to any book on a family that I write, mindful that it's documentation that makes the project a genealogy project rather than a story project and that some of the stories may not hold up to the research.
The biggest protestations I've encountered while research genealogy come from those who grew up believing something or other about their family that the research doesn't prove, but when writing about these discrepancies it's the wording you use to explain the controversy. For instance I was once researching a branch of a large Southern family and they had held a family reunion a few years previous. One of their earnest and sincere members sent me a copy of the genealogy that had been distributed to the members. I followed this research back and found that it stuck right where I was but this family researcher didn't bother to write "The following is speculation." I had to.
The information you may have found in the 1940 census is a good starting point for discussion, especially if you bring along some copies to look at after everyone has eaten and the left overs have been put away and the dishes washed! Family members who lived during the Great Depression or World War II may hitch onto information about who was supporting the family, who joined the CCC's (Civilian Conservation Corps), and so on.
Record whatever anyone has to say.
Though I've found that some stories people tell are inaccurate, I've also gotten some informational leads that lead me to the accuracies.
Thanksgiving gatherings are a good time to talk about the family history and to add stories to your research.
I like to add family stories, testimonials, oral histories, to any book on a family that I write, mindful that it's documentation that makes the project a genealogy project rather than a story project and that some of the stories may not hold up to the research.
The biggest protestations I've encountered while research genealogy come from those who grew up believing something or other about their family that the research doesn't prove, but when writing about these discrepancies it's the wording you use to explain the controversy. For instance I was once researching a branch of a large Southern family and they had held a family reunion a few years previous. One of their earnest and sincere members sent me a copy of the genealogy that had been distributed to the members. I followed this research back and found that it stuck right where I was but this family researcher didn't bother to write "The following is speculation." I had to.
The information you may have found in the 1940 census is a good starting point for discussion, especially if you bring along some copies to look at after everyone has eaten and the left overs have been put away and the dishes washed! Family members who lived during the Great Depression or World War II may hitch onto information about who was supporting the family, who joined the CCC's (Civilian Conservation Corps), and so on.
Record whatever anyone has to say.
Though I've found that some stories people tell are inaccurate, I've also gotten some informational leads that lead me to the accuracies.
22 November 2013
J.F.K. 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ASSASSINATION
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy was fifty years ago today.
Recently I read a couple new books about his presidency as well as his relationship with his wife, Jackie, that focused on his last year or so of life. I also rewatched the Oliver Stone film that came out a few years ago that starred Kevin Costner and suggested CIA involvement - a coup. There have been so many conspiracy theories and notions about who was behind this assassination; the Mafia, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Texas Oilmen, Fidel Castro - and Cuba, the Soviet Union - Russians, Democrat Haters, and maybe you could name a few others. Maybe we will never know.
ONE THING FOR SURE IS THAT SOME AMERICANS THOUGHT KENNEDY'S IDEAS AND VALUES WERE RADICAL. Fifty years later things have changed greatly such as that we went from a country in which racism was a fact to a time when not being politically correct can get a celebrity in trouble, if not sued. The other morning I was listening to a morning radio show and the host was interviewing a Black man on why he gets to call other Blacks Nigger. The host pointed out that Jewish people do not go around calling each other Kike.
Besides the 50th anniversary being a publishing event, I sometimes think that the Kennedy Presidency is felt by those who remember those days, to be the best of America. Some feel that the assassination itself ended America's innocence. (Others feel that Watergate ended it.) I think it had it's good points (much more privacy as the best example) and it's bad.
What is meant by America's innocence?
ANSWER THAT FOR YOURSELF and ask your family members who were alive then. Interview them and record their memories of JFK and this black day in American History.
Recently I read a couple new books about his presidency as well as his relationship with his wife, Jackie, that focused on his last year or so of life. I also rewatched the Oliver Stone film that came out a few years ago that starred Kevin Costner and suggested CIA involvement - a coup. There have been so many conspiracy theories and notions about who was behind this assassination; the Mafia, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, Texas Oilmen, Fidel Castro - and Cuba, the Soviet Union - Russians, Democrat Haters, and maybe you could name a few others. Maybe we will never know.
ONE THING FOR SURE IS THAT SOME AMERICANS THOUGHT KENNEDY'S IDEAS AND VALUES WERE RADICAL. Fifty years later things have changed greatly such as that we went from a country in which racism was a fact to a time when not being politically correct can get a celebrity in trouble, if not sued. The other morning I was listening to a morning radio show and the host was interviewing a Black man on why he gets to call other Blacks Nigger. The host pointed out that Jewish people do not go around calling each other Kike.
Besides the 50th anniversary being a publishing event, I sometimes think that the Kennedy Presidency is felt by those who remember those days, to be the best of America. Some feel that the assassination itself ended America's innocence. (Others feel that Watergate ended it.) I think it had it's good points (much more privacy as the best example) and it's bad.
What is meant by America's innocence?
ANSWER THAT FOR YOURSELF and ask your family members who were alive then. Interview them and record their memories of JFK and this black day in American History.
13 November 2013
THE LIMITATIONS OF TOMBSTONE PROJECTS - THERE ARE BURIALS THAT HAVE NO TOMBSTONES
I have very mixed feelings about tombstone projects.
Volunteers go through cemeteries, take the information down off the tombstone - sometimes photographing - and put it on the information up on the world wide web - the Internet for anyone who uses the net to access.
To me this can be culturally insensitive and as I see it, no graveyard that allows it is sacred. Some cultures do not allow picture taking of the living, believing that this takes some of a person's essence or soul and some see tombstones as ancestral and even where the soul rests. THE TOMBSTONE CENSUS TAKERS SEEM TO EASILY GAIN PERMISSION or DO NOT CARE about these things. It makes me question what paying for a sacred space or privacy in death is all about.
The tombstone project volunteers put information up that is less than 70 years old and the US government thinks of 70 years as the privacy zone - thus the 1940 census was just revealed and records in many states are sealed for the same reason - privacy.
Some people have tombstones that have been carved with the name of the spouse who isn't dead yet. This communicates information such as the name of the living person and that they have been widowed. Not private. In some places, not safe at all.
I can't even get into all the ways the information can be used by identity thieves.
MAYBE THE WORST THING ABOUT TOMBSTONE PROJECTS is that they give the FALSE IMPRESSION that the burials with tombstones are all the burials in that cemetery. YOU SHOULD STILL CONTACT CEMETERIES IF YOU ARE TRYING TO FIND RELATIVES, and the Death Record of that person should record if they were buried and where, or if they were cremated. So don't use tombstone information without the death record for your genealogy.
As funerals and cemeteries and tombstones are more expensive, I suspect more people will be going with cremation in the future, unless their religion forbids it.
Please be aware that some cemeteries have no tombstones, or at least many that have been eroded or stolen. There is no national law that says you have to buy one. Many cemeteries have about 2/3rds of their burials unmarked. This can be because no one ever bought a tombstone or because more than one person is in the tomb. Check the rules and regulations for the city, county, or state about this, but in some places a purchased tomb site allows two burials, one atop the other. (In goes the destitute child or the ex wife!)
Also check into the religious beliefs about burials which may differ because a person is Muslim or Jewish, as examples.
I HAVE FOUND A NUMBER OF TOMBSTONES THAT WERE CARVED WITH INCORRECT INFORMATION, including misspellings of names, variations of the name the person was born with being very common. This can give you the impression you have not found the person you're looking for.
Finally, the birth date may not be accurate. In some times and places the date on the tombstone is the date the person was BAPTISED, and the death date, the date they received LAST RITES. Really!
Volunteers go through cemeteries, take the information down off the tombstone - sometimes photographing - and put it on the information up on the world wide web - the Internet for anyone who uses the net to access.
To me this can be culturally insensitive and as I see it, no graveyard that allows it is sacred. Some cultures do not allow picture taking of the living, believing that this takes some of a person's essence or soul and some see tombstones as ancestral and even where the soul rests. THE TOMBSTONE CENSUS TAKERS SEEM TO EASILY GAIN PERMISSION or DO NOT CARE about these things. It makes me question what paying for a sacred space or privacy in death is all about.
The tombstone project volunteers put information up that is less than 70 years old and the US government thinks of 70 years as the privacy zone - thus the 1940 census was just revealed and records in many states are sealed for the same reason - privacy.
Some people have tombstones that have been carved with the name of the spouse who isn't dead yet. This communicates information such as the name of the living person and that they have been widowed. Not private. In some places, not safe at all.
I can't even get into all the ways the information can be used by identity thieves.
MAYBE THE WORST THING ABOUT TOMBSTONE PROJECTS is that they give the FALSE IMPRESSION that the burials with tombstones are all the burials in that cemetery. YOU SHOULD STILL CONTACT CEMETERIES IF YOU ARE TRYING TO FIND RELATIVES, and the Death Record of that person should record if they were buried and where, or if they were cremated. So don't use tombstone information without the death record for your genealogy.
As funerals and cemeteries and tombstones are more expensive, I suspect more people will be going with cremation in the future, unless their religion forbids it.
Please be aware that some cemeteries have no tombstones, or at least many that have been eroded or stolen. There is no national law that says you have to buy one. Many cemeteries have about 2/3rds of their burials unmarked. This can be because no one ever bought a tombstone or because more than one person is in the tomb. Check the rules and regulations for the city, county, or state about this, but in some places a purchased tomb site allows two burials, one atop the other. (In goes the destitute child or the ex wife!)
Also check into the religious beliefs about burials which may differ because a person is Muslim or Jewish, as examples.
I HAVE FOUND A NUMBER OF TOMBSTONES THAT WERE CARVED WITH INCORRECT INFORMATION, including misspellings of names, variations of the name the person was born with being very common. This can give you the impression you have not found the person you're looking for.
Finally, the birth date may not be accurate. In some times and places the date on the tombstone is the date the person was BAPTISED, and the death date, the date they received LAST RITES. Really!
09 November 2013
GAVIN MENZIES' WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA? DNA EVIDENCE OF NATIVE AMERICAN ASIAN ANCESTRY
GAVIN MENZIES - OFFICIAL SITE WITH LINKS TO ALL HIS WORKS
Gavin Menzies has written previous books, including the bestselling "1421 - How the Chinese discovered America." He's considered controversial because of his theories - which he has enhanced with world travel and meeting with experts in many fields - importantly finding pre 1492 maps. He currently bucks against academia and established theories of science. For instance he is opposed to the Bering Straight - land bridge theory of how Native American people crossed into the Americas and is in favor of sea travel. (Sea travel by the way figures in many tribal stories of how they got here. I recall in one of my anthropology classes the Native American students got angry with the professor and marched out!)
Reading his "Who Discovered America" closely, there are a few assertions that I disagree with, but since DNA science is an essential part of proofing his theories that people were either shipwrecked or traveled the natural currents of the oceans to travel around the continents, I'm intrigued and open minded.
Page 245 ..."The currents in the North Pacific flow in a great lip, carrying boats north from China, past Japan, then swinging east past the Aleutian and Kuril Islands to Alaska, then south along the American coast to Central America. So sea travelers from Asia to North and Central America have a free ride and food along the way and can sail so they are only out of sight of land for three days. This great clockwise, nearly rectangular, flow of water takes place all year round... It appears certain that man reached the Americas by sea at least forty thousand years ago..."
Does being controversial mean he's all wrong?
No, it doesn't.
Over many works, he does have his fans. For instance the New York Times magazine called his ideas revolutionary. The New York Daily News called him a historical detective. Like Jared Diamond, who is a professor in another field but writes his theories about man's evolution of culture and society such as "Guns, Germs, and Steel," or Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman, another professor in a field outside genealogy, but who is combining genealogy and DNA studies of the Melungeons, which suggests that they were Sephardic Jews, there is room for alternative theories. There is room for those who are writing outside their specialty fields or who are simply smart and not educated formally. At one time the World was thought to be flat and anyone who thought otherwise was considered a heretic. (And I suspect that some day science will catch up with reincarnation theories too.)
JARED DIAMOND OFFICIAL SITE
Pages 185-186 - Overview: Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson in a chapter on North Carolina and the Virginias, is about some of the same territory that Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman's researching. He writes about a researcher named Jerry Warsing who is following a disease called Machado-Joseph as evidence of Chinese mariners in North America decades before Christopher Columbus. The Melungoens of West Virginia have a high incidence of this disease which is prevalent in Yunnan Province, China as well as in the Aborigines of Australia and in Yemen. The theory has been that the Portuguese spread this disease but Waring now believes it was the same huge Chinese fleets that Menzies wrote about in previous books who took the disease around the world.
He focused on the Native American tribe called the Mingo whose DNA has a high admixture of East Asian genes. The Mingos themselves said they were not Indian people but descendants of shipwrecked sailors.
Page 186 - Excerpt:
..."Further investigations led Warsing to the eventual conclusion that a fleet of some two hundred ships under the command of Zheng He had been wrecked in about 1432 on the coast between modern Southport, North Carolina, and the Norfolk, Virgina. Confronted with the marshy inhospitable coast, they marched inland up the Cape Fear and Roanoke rivers and settled in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains between Salem and Asheville, North Carolina. Some of them also settled en route in West Virginia, where they left a proliferation of stone buildings - Warshing believed that they also left a selection of Chinese plants, pallowwaddy and rice, along the way. He believes their survivors are among the tribes of the Ming Ho (Mingo), Wyo Ming, Lyco Ming, Shawnee (name corrupted from Oceanye Ho), and Melungeons."
WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA
The Untold History of the Peopling of the Americas
by Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson
is published by Willuiam Morrow - An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Gavin Menzies has written previous books, including the bestselling "1421 - How the Chinese discovered America." He's considered controversial because of his theories - which he has enhanced with world travel and meeting with experts in many fields - importantly finding pre 1492 maps. He currently bucks against academia and established theories of science. For instance he is opposed to the Bering Straight - land bridge theory of how Native American people crossed into the Americas and is in favor of sea travel. (Sea travel by the way figures in many tribal stories of how they got here. I recall in one of my anthropology classes the Native American students got angry with the professor and marched out!)
Reading his "Who Discovered America" closely, there are a few assertions that I disagree with, but since DNA science is an essential part of proofing his theories that people were either shipwrecked or traveled the natural currents of the oceans to travel around the continents, I'm intrigued and open minded.
Page 245 ..."The currents in the North Pacific flow in a great lip, carrying boats north from China, past Japan, then swinging east past the Aleutian and Kuril Islands to Alaska, then south along the American coast to Central America. So sea travelers from Asia to North and Central America have a free ride and food along the way and can sail so they are only out of sight of land for three days. This great clockwise, nearly rectangular, flow of water takes place all year round... It appears certain that man reached the Americas by sea at least forty thousand years ago..."
Does being controversial mean he's all wrong?
No, it doesn't.
Over many works, he does have his fans. For instance the New York Times magazine called his ideas revolutionary. The New York Daily News called him a historical detective. Like Jared Diamond, who is a professor in another field but writes his theories about man's evolution of culture and society such as "Guns, Germs, and Steel," or Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman, another professor in a field outside genealogy, but who is combining genealogy and DNA studies of the Melungeons, which suggests that they were Sephardic Jews, there is room for alternative theories. There is room for those who are writing outside their specialty fields or who are simply smart and not educated formally. At one time the World was thought to be flat and anyone who thought otherwise was considered a heretic. (And I suspect that some day science will catch up with reincarnation theories too.)
JARED DIAMOND OFFICIAL SITE
Pages 185-186 - Overview: Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson in a chapter on North Carolina and the Virginias, is about some of the same territory that Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman's researching. He writes about a researcher named Jerry Warsing who is following a disease called Machado-Joseph as evidence of Chinese mariners in North America decades before Christopher Columbus. The Melungoens of West Virginia have a high incidence of this disease which is prevalent in Yunnan Province, China as well as in the Aborigines of Australia and in Yemen. The theory has been that the Portuguese spread this disease but Waring now believes it was the same huge Chinese fleets that Menzies wrote about in previous books who took the disease around the world.
He focused on the Native American tribe called the Mingo whose DNA has a high admixture of East Asian genes. The Mingos themselves said they were not Indian people but descendants of shipwrecked sailors.
Page 186 - Excerpt:
..."Further investigations led Warsing to the eventual conclusion that a fleet of some two hundred ships under the command of Zheng He had been wrecked in about 1432 on the coast between modern Southport, North Carolina, and the Norfolk, Virgina. Confronted with the marshy inhospitable coast, they marched inland up the Cape Fear and Roanoke rivers and settled in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains between Salem and Asheville, North Carolina. Some of them also settled en route in West Virginia, where they left a proliferation of stone buildings - Warshing believed that they also left a selection of Chinese plants, pallowwaddy and rice, along the way. He believes their survivors are among the tribes of the Ming Ho (Mingo), Wyo Ming, Lyco Ming, Shawnee (name corrupted from Oceanye Ho), and Melungeons."
WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA
The Untold History of the Peopling of the Americas
by Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson
is published by Willuiam Morrow - An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
06 November 2013
PAST LIVES 20/20 BROADCAST : DEEP PHOBIAS FROM A PAST LIFE
This documentary presents two sides of the question - the believers and the skeptics.
01 November 2013
23 October 2013
ARE HOMES THAT PEOPLE DIED IN DEVALUED?
DIED IN HOUSE . COM SITE
At "Died in House" you pay to get the details on who, if anyone, died in your house. You might find out someone died in their own bed in your bedroom. You might find out there was a murder or a fire. DOES THIS REALLY DEVALUE A HOME when it's up for sale?
JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE DIED IN A HOUSE (something that used to be very common before the hospital or hospice became the place to go and die) DOESN'T MEAN THE HOUSE IS HAUNTED, but these days people from many cultures, including our own New Age culture, are concerned about BAD VIBES.
And if a house has bad vibes, what can you do about it?
You can have the home blessed by a priest. You can do Feng Shui or maybe burn sage and candles and make up your own ritual. Of course this means you are telling any ghosts or entities (orbs anyone?) that they must go so you think or believe they are there. If you read around this subject you'll learn that psychics think The Other Side is not so far away from us at all. One psychic says you can tell if they are earth bound or on The Other Side by how high up they are. See a ghost walking on the same floors you do? Then they are earthbound. A few feet up? Not!
Is it all total superstition? After all there are millions of people on this earth who are going to die - somewhere. For a person who is terminally ill to pass on in their own home is often their last wish. I think it would be mine!
At "Died in House" you pay to get the details on who, if anyone, died in your house. You might find out someone died in their own bed in your bedroom. You might find out there was a murder or a fire. DOES THIS REALLY DEVALUE A HOME when it's up for sale?
JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE DIED IN A HOUSE (something that used to be very common before the hospital or hospice became the place to go and die) DOESN'T MEAN THE HOUSE IS HAUNTED, but these days people from many cultures, including our own New Age culture, are concerned about BAD VIBES.
And if a house has bad vibes, what can you do about it?
You can have the home blessed by a priest. You can do Feng Shui or maybe burn sage and candles and make up your own ritual. Of course this means you are telling any ghosts or entities (orbs anyone?) that they must go so you think or believe they are there. If you read around this subject you'll learn that psychics think The Other Side is not so far away from us at all. One psychic says you can tell if they are earth bound or on The Other Side by how high up they are. See a ghost walking on the same floors you do? Then they are earthbound. A few feet up? Not!
Is it all total superstition? After all there are millions of people on this earth who are going to die - somewhere. For a person who is terminally ill to pass on in their own home is often their last wish. I think it would be mine!
21 October 2013
ARE YOU HAUNTED BY YOUR PAST? MISSING RELATIVES YOU LEFT BEHIND?
One of my friends confided in me that she recently went on the Internet and searched for information on some family that she left behind. She said that since then she cannot get these people out of her mind even though more than a decade went by from when they lost contact and she searched for them again. She even dreamed of meeting some of the children she saw in pictures on the Internet. She hadn't really wondered about them through those years and she had no reason to think they missed her.
She found out about a divorce since she found out about a re-marriage, which she finds shocking. She knows where they live and work now. She's thinking about the positives and negatives of trying to reunite with them, or at least visit them. She did all that without any genealogy database research. However, she feels certain that if she does decide to reignite a relationship she needs to honesty tell them about the things they have said and done as individuals and collectively that hurt her and so her reason for moving on. She pretended not to hear or know when she was around them. She played dumb for many years. She doesn't want to be that way any more.
The reasons for her departure from this branch of her family are considerable. She said for years she made efforts to keep relationships going and found it to be very one sided. She also said that though her income was average she got the feeling they were dismissive of her because she was considered to be the poor relation. Last but not least, when she thought about it, theirs was a very different family culture, and she wasn't sure if this was just about their family or that culture. She thought of them as materialistic and greedy. She thought they were always looking at relationships in terms of what they were getting or not getting from people but didn't give as good as they got. She thought of them as poor examples of their religion. She thought the females dominated the men and the children were never raised to actually leave home. They were a rare multigenerational and extended family.
I could sense the pain in my friend. So I asked her to consider what she would want out of a reconnection after over a decade. Did she think maybe they changed or would be more participatory or nicer to her? (There is always the chance that they've changed! but do people ever really change because you want them to? Well, I've changed! Have you?) Would a reunion just result in more pain?
I don't have those answers for her but it occured to me that maybe she was inspired by the recogniztion of her own mortality to see them. Maybe she, at least, wanted to leave this earth without any grudges.
Can genealogy or family history projects heal families? I think the marketing of genealogy promotes that idea. My experiences is sometimes but it's not something to count on. When I was teaching genealogy I had students whose families were extremely cooperative and who could easily put together big books of photos, documents, and warm memories without actually doing research. Others were alone in the project from beginning to end.
I think just about every family has some secret that they collectively do not wish to discuss or recall. You could say whole families are haunted by something.
Such as?
Such as domestic violence, molestation, even a murder. Membership in Organized Crime or someone in prison. Sexist favoritism of the males in the family that left the females floundering or forced to endure unhappy marriages. Unwed motherhood was a big one, though far more common and acceptable now. Mixed marriages or someone leaving the religion of the family is also something that has ripped families apart in the past but is now more common and acceptable.
As a genealogist none of these things shock me.
She found out about a divorce since she found out about a re-marriage, which she finds shocking. She knows where they live and work now. She's thinking about the positives and negatives of trying to reunite with them, or at least visit them. She did all that without any genealogy database research. However, she feels certain that if she does decide to reignite a relationship she needs to honesty tell them about the things they have said and done as individuals and collectively that hurt her and so her reason for moving on. She pretended not to hear or know when she was around them. She played dumb for many years. She doesn't want to be that way any more.
The reasons for her departure from this branch of her family are considerable. She said for years she made efforts to keep relationships going and found it to be very one sided. She also said that though her income was average she got the feeling they were dismissive of her because she was considered to be the poor relation. Last but not least, when she thought about it, theirs was a very different family culture, and she wasn't sure if this was just about their family or that culture. She thought of them as materialistic and greedy. She thought they were always looking at relationships in terms of what they were getting or not getting from people but didn't give as good as they got. She thought of them as poor examples of their religion. She thought the females dominated the men and the children were never raised to actually leave home. They were a rare multigenerational and extended family.
I could sense the pain in my friend. So I asked her to consider what she would want out of a reconnection after over a decade. Did she think maybe they changed or would be more participatory or nicer to her? (There is always the chance that they've changed! but do people ever really change because you want them to? Well, I've changed! Have you?) Would a reunion just result in more pain?
I don't have those answers for her but it occured to me that maybe she was inspired by the recogniztion of her own mortality to see them. Maybe she, at least, wanted to leave this earth without any grudges.
Can genealogy or family history projects heal families? I think the marketing of genealogy promotes that idea. My experiences is sometimes but it's not something to count on. When I was teaching genealogy I had students whose families were extremely cooperative and who could easily put together big books of photos, documents, and warm memories without actually doing research. Others were alone in the project from beginning to end.
I think just about every family has some secret that they collectively do not wish to discuss or recall. You could say whole families are haunted by something.
Such as?
Such as domestic violence, molestation, even a murder. Membership in Organized Crime or someone in prison. Sexist favoritism of the males in the family that left the females floundering or forced to endure unhappy marriages. Unwed motherhood was a big one, though far more common and acceptable now. Mixed marriages or someone leaving the religion of the family is also something that has ripped families apart in the past but is now more common and acceptable.
As a genealogist none of these things shock me.
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