It's always a pleasure to research and write this genealogy blog which includes American History with it's main focus being genealogy in the United States and for Americans.
I was reminded recently that we too are living through history.
The other day I was showing a new friend some photos I had found, my immigrant ancestors on their 50th wedding anniversary, which took place in the 1950's. My new friend comes from one of the oldest American immigrant heritages there is - Dutch into New Amsterdam. His heritage has been part of is family story as long as he can remember, including the name of the wooden sail ship his ancestors were on that came across the Atlantic in the 1600's. I, on the other hand, had almost nothing to go on but the names of my grandparents.
I told him the story of my ancestors in particular the woman named Rose, whose strength and courage I cannot match.
All I had known as a girl of ten, who was beginning to understand that I was actually related to some of the people I met when we visited, was that Rose had been an orphan. I didn't know until years later that in Europe an orphan was a fatherless child, but Rose had been "Double Orphaned." It was assumed she had been alone as a child, without siblings or relatives.
Rose passed before I had any idea that I should be asking questions and what those questions should be. So, on a trip to visit relatives years later, I asked her youngest daughter, "How was Rose orphaned?"
The story came forward sans any details. One parent "burned up in a fire" and the other was "killed on the road."
When Rose was in her 80's she stayed with this relative for a couple weeks summer vacation. One morning she was up especially early. She explained that she had just had the most wonderful dream. She explained that in her dream a man had come to her and said, "At last I have found you!" Then, in the dream, they danced and danced and danced.
Rose was a humble women who always wore a long house dress and an apron and it was not easy to imagine her dancing. One wondered if she'd had a boyfriend before marrying at nineteen and coming to American with a baby onboard the steamship.
The man she had dreamt about turned out to be a brother!
All these years later, scraps of stories that I overheard, or that were all that was left of memories that may have been considered too horrible to relay to children, have been rooted in genealogy research and embellished with historical and cultural research.
Rose, it turns out, was the result of a marriage of a woman who had been widowed and a man who had been widowed twice. Her mother had three children, so she had three half siblings. Rose's father (who most think was the one "killed on the road" was thus the step-father to three. She also had two brothers, who had come to America but decided to go back to Europe after they realized the conditions they would have to live in if they worked in factories here rather than farms there.
But, Rose said, "When we were orphaned, my brother" (the one who had come to her in a dream) said, "Don't worry, you will always have me."
What happened to him?
"He went down with the ship."
For years now I have from time to time worked on finding out what ship and when it went down. It was not the Titanic (everyone asks). Though I don't have the name of the ship, or know if he was on crew or a passenger, through genealogy I've been able to narrow the years this could have happened between a visit or immigration of his wife and her remarriage in Europe a few years later.
As a woman who lost both of her parents as a child, likely before the age of thirteen (the death records are nowhere to be found), and who went to work that young, who married a man their friends arranged, and immigrated to America, Rose was likely traumatized, yet she and her children prevailed, She not only come to America with a baby in her arms but also have birth to many more children.
I sometimes weep a bit for Rose but I more often think that compared to her I'm weak and cowardly!
I take inspiration from her...
I'm proud to have met her!
How do ancestor's figure in your story?
Happy Holidays!
Christine
C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot
