A Paradise Without Genealogy

 

Can there be any such thing? For me, likely not.

It's been a wonderful week's respite, relaxing under the Hawaiian sun this past week, even though our family didn't exactly travel there for vacation purposes. Let's just say it is simply impossible to come to the islands to rush, even if on business.

Before the week was out, however, I found my mind racing to make connections. Genealogical connections. Perhaps my brain is just wired that way.

Unfortunately, I have zero family history connections to this tropical paradise. No great-grandparental lines to research at the local archives. Not even any stories of families, generations ago, stopping here en route to some other trans-Pacific destination. About our only connection to Oahu is the reminder that the recently-passed anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor eighty years ago became the inspiration for my then-seventeen-year-old father-in-law to sign up to serve in the United States Navy.

Lacking any connection to our own family history on this island, I found a week without research played surprising tricks on my mind. Like a Pac-Man chomping on point-bearing dots in a never-ending maze, my mind was left to search for familial connections which never materialized. That genealogically-starved mind glommed on to strange substitutes. Discovering one type of local bird was result of an interbreeding of pigeons and doves—would you call that a "pove" or a "digeon"?—my mind even diverted to consider bird genealogy. 

Now that we are safely returned home—and once the holidays are past us—I'll likely return to more traditional genealogical pursuits. Before I accomplish anything else in this absorbing subject, though, there is one task that must be attended to, and quickly. There is an antique shop which, hopefully, has not closed its doors yet for the last time—a shop which still has in its stock the many family photographs once belonging to Marilyn Sowle Bean. Though I've regained many of those pictures, I have yet to see if I can obtain any of the rest of the collection. Today's my first chance to find out.