FEELING YOURSELF TO BE OTHER THAN YOUR DNA ETHNICITY OR CURRENT FAMILY GROUP

I've encountered so many people who simply feel out of place with their DNA ethnicity or current family group.  For instance, many Americans have so many intermarriages between ethnic groups in their heritage that they identify as "American," yet others relate to the ethnicity of their surname or the ethnicity of some family member who dominates the group.  (In some cases learning little about their other lines.) Others cannot relate to any of their lines.

I consider that memories from other lives, DNA, and other factors may result in feeling yourself to be, say Greek, rather than Irish. There are people who have never felt they belonged to the family they know though they certainly were born to the parents they have.

ASK YOURSELF HOW ALIKE OR DIFFERENT YOU ARE FROM THE STEREOTYPES OF AN ETHNICITY.  What ethnicity were you raised to be part of?

DO YOU LIKE FOOD THAT IS OUTSIDE OF YOUR CULTURE OF ORIGIN OR UPBRINGING?

DO YOU SEEM TO GRAVITATE TO OTHERS FROM ANOTHER CULTURE, feeling more comfortable with them?

Multiculturalism is apparent in so many countries, especially the United States and Europe, and it brings challenges but also some wonderful sharing.  

SERENDIPITY or SYNCRONICITY THE BOOKS OF HENRY Z. JONES

I enjoyed reading these books years ago and some of the stories were simply astounding while others had me coming up with explanations.  

No doubt I've experienced some research quests that involved serendipity or synchronicity.  Let me explain that as a person becomes more experienced with genealogy they know their resources and what might be perceived as block is simply not knowing resources. Generally there is a linear thought process about what to do next and why works.  However, while doing everything "right" you sometimes run into the difficulty of knowing what it is you need but not finding it where it should be. (Missing documents along the path; too many "fires" and "floods.") Even then you can sometimes find your way around.  Never the less, I think being in the right place at the right time to talk to someone else who is researching can result in acquiring the knowledge that you seek. 

One explanation, popular in LDS circles, is that the ancestors are helping you do your genealogy. What else do you make of someone who is new to the process of research showing up at a library and choosing the seat next to another researcher who happens to be related to them and discovering that within hours?

Jones has other books on the Palatine families - generally Germans (one of several groups of people who became Germans as we think of German's today) who left Germany to Ireland and the United States.

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SEEING THE PICTURE IN BLACK AND WHITE GAVE ME A SHOCK OF RECOGNITION

During one of my forays into tracing an ancestor, I went to a famous art library which happens to have some excellent genealogy resources.  Based on a translation, I wanted books about one of the "German Towns" in a country outside Germany. 

For those of you who don't know, Germans migrated out of Germany for hundreds of years with the understanding that they would always be Germans and welcomed back. 

There were rather strict rules about who inherited the family farm, usually the youngest son who would also stay to take care of his elderly parents. As families were generally large there were many Germans who left what would become unified nation-states and became Germany to go to other countries to establish life there based in economic need.  Generally Germans were welcome in other countries, including the United States, and were invited to settle because they were thought to be industrious.

So I began to page through the books looking at old black and white photos of these settlements. Then as I turned the page of a particular book and saw the photo of a large building and a road going past it, I was struck with a shiver of recognition.  None of the other photographs I saw had this effect on me.  

These shivers I call Truth Shivers.  Be it remembering a place from a dream (which might mean having seen it before) or a past life, the shiver made me focus on the time and place of the photo. Was this perhaps the place to next look for the ancestor who was listed on a marriage document as having come from a place with this name.

Forward several years later, I learned that the translation was correct but that another place in another country (much closer to the place the person lived for many years hence) was ALSO given this name. I know that the names of places often come from where the residents left or lived prior to moving. In the United States many settlements are named after places in England, for instance.

Unable to yet establish the person's link with BOTH places, I've let this one rest.  Maybe synchronicity will bring the answer. 

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POLITICALLY INCORRECT VALENTINES

This past winter came the controversy of the Christmas Song titled "Baby It's Cold Outside."  I listened to different versions.  Some better than others.  Some more flirtatious than others.  I learned the original song debuted in the 1930's and the singers - one male - one female - sang it so that at first it sounded like the male was flirting - seductive - with the female and then that reversed.  In any case, I thought it was ridiculous to pick on this particular fun song, when we've had the sexist, woman objectifying and disrespecting rap phenomena for so long.

But as I went through Google Images looking for a vintage and public domain Valentine to post on ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT, I was sensitive to the fact that so very many of them sounded stalkerish.

Keep those Valentines for your family history project. They are quite telling about attitudes and values in boys' and girls' and mens' and womens' relationships in their time and place.

LOVE and HATE IN JAMESTOWN by DAVID A. PRICE: ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW

PROMISED to clear away the misconceptions and half truths, let's start with that explorer Captain John Smith never had a romance with Pocahontas, who was about 11 years old when she first saved his life.  She was the favorite of Powhatan, the "King" of a great Native American Nation, one of his children by his many wives.  For those of you who may be seeking ancestry connected to Powhatan, consider that he'd take a wife and discard her after she had a child by him, which sounds like a strategy to spread you genes to me. (In European Feudal times the Lord of the Manner, or the owner of the Estate, sometimes also had rights to have sex with a woman before she married another subject.) Captain Smith was appreciative, after all the maiden saved his life twice, but if she had a thing for him, he considered it a platonic relationship. Smith was never in his 40 years or so of life known to have a romantic relationship with any woman.  

In 1607 the first three ships, all quite tiny really, landed in Virginia with an attempt to colonize. (The Spanish considered this part of the country to be theirs and recognized "French America." The British were far behind in their attempts to colonize.) In 1608 a second supply of colonists arrived including the first woman, the wife of a gentleman, and her maid. With 200 men to this one unmarried maid, well, she was soon married. Speaking of the gentleman class - the leisure class - of passengers, they apparently expected to have adventures but not to have to work.  But not for long.  Captain Smith basically ruled that if you did not work, you did not eat.

Captain John Smith had military experience, having been in warfare in Hungary, but he was not expected to rule the colonies. Deaths in the colony allowed him to rise to the task and he did so well. Considering that he and the Englishmen had to try and understand the Native American culture they encountered, he showed patience and cunning. Smith knew how to bluff and so the starvation of the colonists was at best delayed.

In this book, you'll read about the relationships between the English and Native Americans, what worked and what did not. Smith was set aside when the "real" leaders arrived and that's when the bloodshed began. 

Pocahontas was converted to Christianity, married an Englishman and gave birth to the first Native-American/ English child. She traveled to England and was introduced to society as a woman of rank but she didn't live long. She had been told John Smith had died.  When she saw him in England she was not amused.

Also of interest, besides Hungary being a training ground for Smith, is that some Germans and Poles came to be craftsmen, to make of glass for and example, and so on in the New World. Thus central Europe and Europeans are part of this story.

Finally, yes there was cannibalism.

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