What Makes You Wonder?

 

Wonder is a key necessity for those wanting to discover their family history. So much more than simply building a family tree, or "doing genealogy," exploring our ancestors' history calls for a sense of wonder.

In my case, what makes me wonder the most is how people in my family connected—not just through family relationships, but through time and place as well. Even though Theresa Blaising was not a blood relative of the Stevens family, I wondered just how she connected, how her path crossed with her future husband,  John Kelly Stevens. Even more so, I wondered how she traveled to Indiana at all, considering she was French-born and unlikely to have landed in a place like New Haven. Wonder presumes there is a story and seeks to uncover it.

There are other ways of connection I wonder about. Last week, my husband and I were traveling in upstate New York and had the chance to visit with the daughter of one of his Stevens cousins and her family. Since we had never traveled that way before, we were meeting the children for the first time—upon which opportunity my husband got the chance to explain to some eager young learners just what it meant to be a first cousin twice removed.

During that visit, I was struck with how similar some of the boys looked to the son of one of my husband's sisters, when he was that age. It immediately reminded me of what I've seen through DNA testing: how even a small amount of shared DNA could bring out such similar facial details or personality characteristics as to surprise us when we see them in distant relatives. Wonder propels us into areas of discovery we might not previously have expected to explore.

Those types of connections make me wonder. Even more so, they send me in pursuit of answers to those questions I'm wondering about. Wonder is a force propelling research further, providing tools to navigate the exploration.

Being there, wherever "there" is for your family's story, can awaken a form of wonder, too. When we flew in to Buffalo, the hotel where we spent our first night was actually in a nearby town which name I recognized from researching a collateral line in my own father's Polish immigrant family history. What brought that branch of the family to the opposite side of the state from where siblings had chosen to settle? Actually following those paths and being in those places, though decades or even centuries later, can awaken wonder about what that place held for our traveling ancestors. Wonder calls us to reach out and touch, to share the experience, to see an ancestor's life through their own eyes, if possible.

Each one of us, in our pursuit of our family's stories, may have a different "wonder" about the people we are researching. But whatever that "wonder" may be for you, I'm glad that the "wonder" is there. Wonder allows us to preserve that story of family through the generations, to pass it on to yet another generation removed—to give them a chance to wonder, as well.