Pondering the Matrilineal

It’s Mother’s Day. And that makes us think of our mothers—mostly of some detail that helps us realize how grateful we are for what they’ve done for us. This is a day tailor-made for reminiscing about those particular women in our lives—first of all, for our mothers. And then their mothers.

Pretty soon, we find ourselves thinking about their mothers, as well. Before you know it, that line of thinking can go back for generations, each generation shaping the one to come, which in turn shaped the next one. We are, without a doubt, the product of those who have gone before us.

It doesn’t take a genealogist long to realize that that line of thinking leads us straight down the matrilineal path of DNA pursuits. We can’t help it: it’s in our genealogical genes, it seems. We were built to think like that. Our minds seek out patterns. Relationships. Connections.

It was four years ago, this weekend, that I launched A Family Tapestry, in part, to pursue my own matrilineal line. Of course, I had no intention to do this to the exclusion of the other family lines, but I started out with my mother in mind. Though she is gone now, I wanted to know more about her family—and to document my progress in uncovering that particular bit of micro-history. It was also a chance to create a repository of my findings that could be shared with others seeking the same information.

In doing so, it becomes so clear what a chain of relationships the generations weave. Each generation has such an impact on the subsequent one—but had been shaped by the generations preceding them. We are each a product of those who came before us, but each of them was not free of the influence of those who spoke into their lives the ideas and attitudes they carried forward into their future.

Often, when a mother brings a new baby into the world, family gathers around to meet the newborn, cooing and cuddling and poking fingers, asserting that, without a doubt, this one got his chin from Uncle George or has toes just like Grandma Smith. We look for those hallmarks of prior generations, and seem relieved to identify the one whose genetic gift assures us that our loved ones will live on in their descendants.

There is a lot to be mindful of, during Mother’s Day festivities. Perhaps your day will not be overwhelmed with such thoughts, but with more simple pleasures, like hot dogs grilled and shared with family at the park, or a grand dinner out at a favorite restaurant. Hopefully, it will be filled with appreciative words and gestures for the mothers in your life. But if you’ve spent any time at all letting the detective side of your mind pursue familial connections back through the generations, perhaps those more distant mothers in your family history will people the matrilineal panoply for whom you’ve become grateful, as well.

Above: "My Wife and Daughters in the Garden," 1910 oil on canvas by Joaquin Sorolla; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.