Your Most Disturbing Realizations

[Fading Fast]

Genealogy isn't for everyone (though there's never enough geology!!). Personally, I like the "paper" genealogy more than the genetics, as the paper trail is where the stories are. I guess I view it a lot like studying history. I'm interested in the stories of the past, how I/we got to where we are, even if I have no control over it.

And that makes sense to me. If I could, with ease, read an honest family history, I would. I am just not passionate enough about it to do any work. However, I can understand how somebody would be.

The little I know is interesting. For example, my Dad's father didn't like his father or farming (they were German immigrant farmers in the mid-west), so he came East in the early 1900s to make his way in the world. He met my grandmother - a Connecticut Yankee - who was disowned by her family for marring a first-generation, "nobody German." Since those two had only one child - my father - and both were alienated from their families, now that my grandparents and father are dead, I know not one relative from my father's side.

Had those two "rebels for their day" not met, I wouldn't be here (everyone, please, stop cheering). It's quite interesting, but again, for me, just not worth the effort.

 

[HudsonHawk]

A couple of random (rambling?) thoughts...

1. I've been working on mine and my wife's family history, and my wife keeps asking "what was their occupation? That's what I want to know...". When I respond "farmer", she rolls her eyes. "Didn't anybody do anything else back in the day?". Not many, dear.

2. I watched Gangs of New York last night, and while it's a so-so movie, it hits on a few interesting historical tidbits, particularly the nativism and anti-immigrant fervor in New York City during the mid 19th century. Being centered around the Draft Riots of 1863, it really hits on the feelings of both the recent immigrants ("wait a minute...I just got here, why should *I* poor immigrant have to go off to fight *your* rich-man's war?") and that of the "natives" ("why should you who just arrived have any say so in how to run a country you had no interest in founding?"). Seems some things never do change. Secondly, just the idea that lower Manhattan hasn't always been skyscrapers is a quick reminder of how quickly this country changed after the Civil War.

 

[tonyb]

The sense I get from most of us here us that we are curious about our personal ancestries but choose not to define ourselves by them.

I suspect this is a predominately Western attitude -- American, even. We might harbor some level of familial or tribal identity, but we tend toward a more individualist sense of self.

It wasn't always thus. Leastwise I don't think it was. The matters we are discussing openly and unashamedly were downright taboo not so long ago. It appears that we moderns are becoming less beholden to "where we came from," be it good, bad, or ugly. For most of us, our opinion of you will be little affected by the knowledge that your grandfather was a Nobel laureate. Or a career criminal.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think a big part of that is that so many of our ancestors came here specifically to get away from their backgrounds.

 

[ChiTownScion]

I think a big part of that is that so many of our ancestors came here specifically to get away from their backgrounds.

I'm certain that was part of it in many instances. The laws of inheritance played a major role as well, both formally and in terms of culturally mandated preferences: primogeniture accorded the first born son favored status, and the siblings got nothing. Or, as in Ireland, land was divided among heirs upon the death of the owner, and each generation generally got an increasingly smaller plot with which to feed a family. Relying on the fast growing potato seemed a solution... until a blight wiped out the crop and caused the famine with which we are all familiar. All great incentives to emigrate to a country where land was cheap and labor in demand.

Economic determinism makes a lot more sense than the "they came here to worship according to the dictates of their consciences" drivel that is the staple of so many nap- inducing sermons. To me, anyway.

 

[Fading Fast]

A couple of random (rambling?) thoughts...

1. I've been working on mine and my wife's family history, and my wife keeps asking "what was their occupation? That's what I want to know...". When I respond "farmer", she rolls her eyes. "Didn't anybody do anything else back in the day?". Not many, dear.....

Pre-industrialization all but a few were farmers (what else was there to do) and since family trees gets wider and wider the farther back you go - all of us have some and, most, probably mostly farmers in our background.

 

[Fading Fast]

I'm certain that was part of it in many instances. The laws of inheritance played a major role as well, both formally and in terms of culturally mandated preferences: primogeniture accorded the first born son favored status, and the siblings got nothing. Or, as in Ireland, land was divided among heirs upon the death of the owner, and each generation generally got an increasingly smaller plot with which to feed a family. Relying on the fast growing potato seemed a solution... until a blight wiped out the crop and caused the famine with which we are all familiar. All great incentives to emigrate to a country where land was cheap and labor in demand.

Economic determinism makes a lot more sense than the "they came here to worship according to the dictates of their consciences" drivel that is the staple of so many nap- inducing sermons. To me, anyway.

I've always thought a part of America's work ethic (which was generally recognized as very hard until the last generation or so) is that we are descended mainly from people who willingly undertook a hard, scary trip into the unknown to better their lives - those don't sound like "sit on your butt" people to me.

 

[LizzieMaine]

At the turn of the nineteenth century, over 90 percent of Americans were farmers. You don't have to dig very far before you hit soil.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've always thought a part of America's work ethic (which was generally recognized as very hard until the last generation or so) is that we are descended mainly from people who willingly undertook a hard, scary trip into the unknown to better their lives - those don't sound like "sit on your butt" people to me.

Or were brought here -- not always willingly -- to work for others. And that doesn't always mean chattel slaves -- the practice of "transportation" of "undesirables" for indentured servitude was very very common in the early Colonial time, and a lot of us with Scottish ancestry likely have a few unwilling immigrants in our background.

 

[ChrisB]

If you go back far enough, you find that last names were quite fluid, changing with a persons circumstances. Many people took the name of the farm that they worked, and could be known by several last names over the course of their lives. It can be interesting to look at your origins as long as you can accept that you will find mostly ordinary people, with a few horse thieves and prostitutes in the mix. If you hope to find nobility, you will be disappointed. Go back a few generations and we are all related anyway, so what difference does it make?

 

[Fading Fast]

Or were brought here -- not always willingly -- to work for others. And that doesn't always mean chattel slaves -- the practice of indentured servitude was very very common in the early Colonial time, and a lot of us with Scottish ancestry likely have a few not-all-that-willing immigrants in our background.

very fair point

 

[LizzieMaine]

I've always found little real difference between horse-thieves and prostitutes and nobility anyway.

 

[HudsonHawk]

If you go back far enough, you find that last names were quite fluid, changing with a persons circumstances. Many people took the name of the farm that they worked, and could be known by several last names over the course of their lives. It can be interesting to look at your origins as long as you can accept that you will find mostly ordinary people, with a few horse thieves and prostitutes in the mix. If you hope to find nobility, you will be disappointed. Go back a few generations and we are all related anyway, so what difference does it make?

For most of us of European ancestry, you don't have to go back very far to find nobility, and not all that far to find royalty. It's pretty much mathematically impossible to *not* find nobility/royalty in your ancestry. That doesn't mean you won't also find the horse thieves and prostitutes also. In many cases they're one and the same.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I think a big part of that is that so many of our ancestors came here specifically to get away from their backgrounds.

This is especially true if your family, like mine, is from Texas. "Gone to Texas" was a common inscription following names written on sheriffs' wanted lists. Texans like to romanticize the practice and claim their ancestors had to run because of killing someone in a duel or robbing banks. In fact, what the great majority of people were fleeing was debt.

 

[ChrisB]

I've always found little real difference between horse-thieves and prostitutes and nobility anyway.

You are being unfair to horse thieves and prostitutes.

 

[Zombie_61]

Genealogy isn't for everyone (though there's never enough geology!!). Personally, I like the "paper" genealogy more than the genetics, as the paper trail is where the stories are...

Only if you know where to look, and/or what you're looking at, in some cases. My personal paper trail ends at my birth certificate, because I became a member of my family through an "off the books" adoption. As such, any documentation prior to that is completely inaccurate as far as my biological family tree is concerned. Actually, even my birth certificate is incorrect; the name listed under "Mother's Maiden Name" (or whatever it says) is not my adoptive mother's maiden name. I suspect it's my biological mother's maiden name, but I'll never really know.

 

[HudsonHawk]

Only if you know where to look, and/or what you're looking at, in some cases. My personal paper trail ends at my birth certificate, because I became a member of my family through an "off the books" adoption. As such, any documentation prior to that is completely inaccurate as far as my biological family tree is concerned. Actually, even my birth certificate is incorrect; the name listed under "Mother's Maiden Name" (or whatever it says) is not my adoptive mother's maiden name. I suspect it's my biological mother's maiden name, but I'll never really know.

1. There's a dilemma most amateur genealogists face...do I follow the "family" trail or the biological trail as almost no one's paper and biology match up back beyond four or five generations. Secondly, you don't have to go very far back before the paper trail becomes pretty thin. For some like yourself, it's almost immediate. But even for most people, getting reliable information farther back than the mid-1800s is pretty difficult. And it's rarely complete for all your ancestors, even that short distance. Getting back to say 1700 all the way around is a daunting task indeed. For example, for an average 40-something today, it takes four or five generations just to get back to 1850 or so. That's 64 distinct ancestors. To go back another 100 years it's 2,048. To get back to who was on the Mayflower? That's 131,072 distinct ancestors to have to figure out. Wanna know if you're descendant from Henry VIII? Roughly 134,217,728 individual ancestors to identify. Just for you.

2. If you're ever interested (and maybe you're not), DNA analysis can help you. It's become very easy and affordable, and the databases that many of these services have is growing exponentially all the time. You can do general family connections, connections specifically to your birth mother, and because you are a male, you can have your y chromosome tested that will link you with your biological father's family. Again, you may have no interest whatsoever in knowing, but if you do, the ability to find information today is light years ahead of where it was say just 10-15 years ago.

 

[Zombie_61]

2. If you're ever interested (and maybe you're not), DNA analysis can help you. It's become very easy and affordable, and the databases that many of these services have is growing exponentially all the time. You can do general family connections, connections specifically to your birth mother, and because you are a male, you can have your y chromosome tested that will link you with your biological father's family. Again, you may have no interest whatsoever in knowing, but if you do, the ability to find information today is light years ahead of where it was say just 10-15 years ago.

I thank you for the suggestion, and I'm aware of DNA analysis, but at this point I have zero interest. If a woman 17-18 years older than me ever shows up on my doorstep claiming to by my biological mother, then maybe, just as a method of verification. Otherwise, I'm completely satisfied with the way things are.

 

[Bertie.Wooster]

As a child, I only used a music ipod and an old battered and slow Macbook which I still operate for 5 years now. Trusty Apple I learnt how to operate a typewriter at the age of 13, pretty uncommon for a child these days. Olympia Deluxe Typewriter, very nice machine it is. I collect old boaters and also morse keys.

 

[Zombie_61]

As a child, I only used a music ipod...

As I child I used a turntable and a "4 track" tape player because compact cassette tapes hadn't taken over as the new technology yet. Now, where did I put that bottle of Geritol...