A week ago I couldn’t even spell genealogy—at least not correctly. Now, after beginning a class (on ZOOM, of course) and taking my first dive into creating a family tree, I am slightly obsessed. My husband might argue about that word slightly.
My new found love of genealogy is really just an extension of my lifelong love of stories. Just as my love of reading is an extension of my love of stories, so is genealogy. The fun of genealogy is that you are on an adventure to discover and explore your family stories and how you and your stories fit within the wider story of your family history. Plus we are all part of an even more enormous and on-going (at least, we hope) story: the story of human history.
In many ways genealogy is working to solve a mystery. Multiple mysteries. Some surprising stories can pop up as you search for these stories. For example, my whole life i thought my grandfather (my father’s father) was from Ireland. I never knew my grandfather as he died when my father was only five years old (and that is another story). My father always told me that grandfather was from County Sligo in Ireland. In 2003, when Tom and I traveled to Ireland, one of the places we went was the city of Sligo, and indeed, there were many residents with the surname Finan. Even the owner of the Bed & Breakfast where we stayed confirmed that Finan was a common name in County Sligo. He even offered to put me in contact with a few. But I did not have the time or the knowledge to do any research during that visit; now much of Ireland’s genealogical history is on line. They were just beginning this when we were there as I think American tourists hunting for their relatives were driving historical societies and churches (where church registers held many clues) crazy. Even though I never met my grandfather Finan, I was always very proud of my Irish heritage.
So here I am in week one of diving into my family history and one of the things I discover is that my grandfather was NOT from Ireland. He was born in Pennsylvania (and I have source material to prove this). But HIS father—my father’s grandfather— was indeed born in Ireland. So when my father was talking about the grandfather from Ireland he meant HIS grandfather, MY great-grandfather. All these years I thought I needed to search for my grandfather Joseph Finan who immigrated from Ireland, when I should have been searching for my great-grandfather whose name was Daniel Finan. No wonder I could never find Joseph Finan in the registers of ships coming into Ellis Island from Ireland! Time to look again, this time with the correct name. I even found a source that revealed the year my great-grandfather Daniel and his wife Annie arrived along with two of their sons (though not my grandfather who would be born a decade later in Pennsylvania) arrived.
In the big scheme of things it probably matters to no one but a small few in my family. Maybe it matters only to me. But it is like being led down a path in a mystery novel to suddenly discover, “Eureka! I have been following the wrong trail of bread crumbs into the forest.” And then you retrace your steps and try to look for the bread crumbs you missed.
But why? Why bother at all? Because it is part of my story, part of my family’s story. It is part of who we are. Plus I am finding it to be great fun.
Yes, I do wish I had cared about this when I was younger, so I could have asked my parents, my grandparents (my mother’s parents lived long lives of which I was blessed to be a part), and other relatives the many questions I have now. But honestly, I didn’t care at all when I was younger. Maybe tracing your roots is something that only starts to appeal to you when you think you may be nearing the end of your own living part in your family history. You discover this strange desire to delve more deeply into this, as the Bible calls it, “generation to generation” saga. You decide to spend some time with your family, the ones you knew and the ones you never knew.
So I am working on my family tree, but alongside of it I want to work on some of the narrative stories of my family. Many of these stories have been lost. I will never be able to fully re-tell some of the stories my father told me, about sledding with his cousins down a steep, icy hill into the little town of South Fork and suddenly realizing there was no stopping their sleds; or the day my maternal grandfather accidentally cut off his thumb at a construction site where he was working; or my Dad having the nickname of “Hooky” because he would never dream of playing hooky and got teased about how much he loved going to school; or my mother having the nickname “Shine” though she refused to ever tell me why. What about that story my father told me of our family traveling back to the States by ship after being stationed with the Army in Japan and then the cross country drive. Did my mother and sister really almost get eaten by a bear? I can remember little bits here and there but not the full stories.
All I can do is try to write down some of the stories I do remember. The time a mule chased my brother and I across a field at Cousin Nellie’s house. My delight in being allowed to play and snoop around up in my grandparents’ attic. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a small statue of the Virgin Mary (which I still have) in an old suitcase. How did Mary find her way into that Southern Baptist attic? How a summer of barning tobacco revealed quite clearly that I needed to go to college as I had no hope of making a living with manual labor. The devastating phone call I received when my brother died suddenly. My childhood failure as a piano student trying to follow in my sister’s illustrious footsteps. All these little stories that make up a much larger story. My grandchildren may never care about who begat whom in our family history, but they might find these stories something interesting to read one day.
For myself, as a budding genealogy student, I actually DO want to know who begat whom, but I also want to leave behind some of the reasons that I think it matters. After all, who doesn’t love a good story?
Thanks for this post Jeanne!
I too have Irish roots - Mathew O'Donovan, leaving Ireland from County Cork. I've always felt a certain pride in being part of the South Side Irish in Chicago growing up. I was dragged into the genealogy of my mother's side of the family when my mom was visiting a few years ago. We attended a Grandma Moses exhibit at Shelburne Farms, and were looking at "Battle of Bennington," a painting that GM was commissioned to do for the Daughters of the American Revolution. (She was 93 when she painted it). My mom off-handedly remarked that her grandmother was a DAR member, so when we got home we hopped on ancestry.com to see how this unfolded. A few months later, and after following a few rabbit holes, my mom worked with a genealogist at her local library and found the true path. They didn't stop with our Patriot, though (I can't remember his name) . . . it turns out that we go back to the Mayflower! Suddenly I'm not so proud of my heritage -- it brings up the destruction of many Native American societies that began with those first settlers. Genealogy really brings history to new and personal level.
Thanks for the post!
I become interested in genealogy some years ago searching for an ancestor who fought in the Revolutionary War. I found him and I am a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. This was my Fathers ancestor. I am lucky to have both family bibles that belonged to my great grandparents on my Mother’s side of the family which have dates back to the early 1800’s. People used to write down births, deaths, etc. in bibles.
Like you I wished I had asked more questions when I was young but I wasn’t interested then. But I have written down some stories. Genealogy is like solving a mystery or puzzle. It can be fun and also frustrating.
Good luck with your search! Enjoyed your post.