Frames of Reference

 

We may bemoan the fact that, despite our best efforts at research, we still don't really know that much about our ancestors—even our closer ancestors. In the case of the only grandmother my father-in-law ever knew, despite the personal connection, there still wasn't much to pass to the next generation about her family's story.

I gave that realization some thought today. Not that I'm the only one to face that difficulty—in the resources we've found this month, it appears I am in good company in my complaints about lack of detailed information. In a 2019 presentation to the Besancon Historical Society, the speaker discussed the "problem"—a sparse supply of "sketchy" stories. Over the generations, that bare-bones story of immigration was "either forgotten or more often simplified."

I am wondering whether that case of the vanishing immigration story might rather be due to the effect of frames of reference. In the speaker's case at the Historical Society, the example was given of simply saying one's ancestors were "from Paris," or even more generally, "from France." I am wondering whether that might be more of a factor of a speaker declining to explain details which would have been beyond the listener's frame of reference. Why go into detail when the detail would be meaningless to the listener?

An example from my own experience resonates. When I first moved to California from the New York City suburbs where I spent my high school years, I never answered the question, "Where are you from?" with a specific answer. I'd generally say New York and leave it at that. Only if I knew the person I was talking to was also from that area would I go into further detail. Otherwise, it would be extraneous information, easily discarded.

How were those ancestors to know that one day, we would have powerful computers with search engines able to ferret out the slightest details, not only of current events and locations, but also of now-nonexistent villages halfway around the world? How could they have even known that generations after them, people would have the time and inclination to dig up those details of the life they had left behind—and good riddance, as far as they were concerned in many cases.

People share information with their audience based on their perception of the listener's frame of reference. Imagine what you'd say to an inquisitive grandchild, after a long day of work in the field, in answer to the question, "Where did you come from?" The answer to Besancon's grandchildren in Indiana might likely be, "Oh, from far, far away, but in a little village much like this one here."

This puts a different spin on the usual complaint about not listening to our elders' stories until it was too late to ask them; if we did ask when we were younger, the answer might be framed for what was seen as appropriate for younger ears.

True, in many cases, we didn't stop and stay to hear any stories when we were younger, but we also might not have had the framework to build upon the references made in the telling of that tale. If all we know about France is that it is across the Atlantic Ocean and has a city named Paris, the clarity of details like "Besancon" might be lost on us. But then, how many of us have taken care to tell our own stories in the detail we wish we had received from our ancestors? Perhaps it is human nature to gloss over the details we think our listener would see as "TMI"—too much information.

In all the letters my father-in-law's family preserved from Theresa Blaising, their grandmother, it is evident that she was writing about happenings very much in the present. Perhaps, by that point as an elderly woman, she was the last one surviving of all her siblings. That immigration story was likely far from her mind—certainly much farther removed than a widow's concerns about living life alone, far from family, during a World War.

Perhaps we need to go more lightly on our ancestors when we complain about their lack of information about where they once lived or any of the other details we crave about our family's history. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to piece together the story—and sometimes we can be quite successful in such endeavors. It's just that, in Theresa Blaising's case, there wasn't much story to gather.

With the coming week, we'll be into a new month, pursuing a new ancestor. We'll set Theresa's story aside, noting what was gained from this month's search and drawing up a list of what is still needed to reach back to another generation in a future attempt. On Monday, we'll move to another ancestral puzzle from my father-in-law's Irish family.