What a Stray Dog Reminded me About Genealogy

 

I was not kidding the other day when I quipped, "The dog ate my research." In the midst of a summer-long dog-sitting obligation for a friend on vacation, my daughter found herself the unexpected foster "mom" to a stray dog who leapt the fence into the yard of the place where she was housesitting. That suddenly transformed that job into two dogs to watch—at least, until the owner showed up to claim that other handsome German Shepherd—and dog-walking duties for two big dogs required an assistant.

That assistant was me.

When days turned into weeks without any sightings of a bereft dog owner, the real dog of the household began to feel—and act—like the red-headed stepchild instead of the true canine resident of the property. Thus, we invented special canine outings for a change of pace. On balmy summer evenings, we'd drive to a different park in town, take the poor dog for a walk someplace new, then wrap up the evening with a stop at a local ice cream shop before driving home for the night. That's when I realized a stray dog was teaching me something about genealogy.

Don't suppose I'm about to launch into a reprise of my thoughts on Cat Genealogy and Dog Tags. The lesson from this summer's dog-walking escapades opened my eyes to a different aspect of genealogy, specifically because those evening outings gifted me with a flashback to my own childhood memories. 

When I was a child, my parents indulged their love of ice cream, and shared that passion with me. On summer evenings, my mother would invite me to take a walk into town for an ice cream cone. Or my dad would pile the family into the car and take a leisurely after-dinner drive—after stopping for a scoop at the local creamery. Even visits to my grandparents in Ohio included trips to that special ice cream shop out in the country, the one right next to the dairy farm. 

Those childhood memories hid latent in my memory—until jogged by those dog-sitting duties and their accompanying ice cream detours this summer. And, along the way on those dog-walking excursions, as I'd share those lazy-summer memories with my daughter, I realized I was missing one aspect of a complete report of my family history: my own story. Yes, I can tell these memories to my daughter if I think of them, and maybe some day, she'll recall the moment I shared the stories and pass them along to another generation. But even better than that would be to write down those recollections as they occur to me, in a format where they can be saved and passed along.

Recently, an emailed note from Family Tree Magazine was headlined, "Genealogy Questions to Ask Older Relatives." The article provided several interview questions to ask those "older relatives," with those suggestions organized by category. Of course, some of us look around and realize the only ones left to fill the shoes of those "older relatives" are us.

Far better, in such cases, is the realization which dawned on blogger Lisa, "The Shy Genealogist," when her son texted her to ask for a picture of his grandfather, who unexpectedly died when her son was a young child. "Is it ironic that the genealogist in the family has never shared this information with her own children?" she asked. 

Lisa has since shifted her focus to preserving the stories of her more recent ancestors—to share her own memories of these people whom she knew, or those whose stories she remembered her own relatives sharing with her. 

I've been reminded of a fuller scope of such tasks when I hear researchers urge each other to do one additional step: write your own story. Some of us may groan to think of journaling, or shy away from documenting our own past. It is work, but it is a labor of love which someone will someday appreciate receiving—preserving a tangible reminder of who we are and what meant the most in our life.

I never would have expected receiving such a reminder by events cascading from the chance appearance of a stray dog on our doorstep. The lazy feeling at the end of another summer evening, with the refreshing delta breezes coming in over the water at the marina, or on the drive home from a different dog-walking adventure, passing a building in a part of town where I hadn't been for a long time, somehow triggered memories and instigated conversation, reminding me of all the stories still needing to be captured and preserved.

Genealogy may be the recording of names, dates, and places in our family's generations, but it also is capturing the memories of those whose lives, in whatever way, made us what we are. We are preserving the essence of what those roots have fed us. While it is important to record the data on our distant ancestors, no government document can divulge the personal memories we have of the relatives we've known over our lifetime—their likes and dislikes, their personality, little details only close family would recognize. If we don't pass along those memories, who will know?

It isn't hard to realize that we are part of our family's story, too. I think we already know that. It's just a lot of work to add such an additional task to the endless quest for yet another generation in the family tree. So we conveniently "forget" to put ourselves in the picture.

I know. I'm one of those who tend to forget that, too—until a stray dog made me break from daily routine and reminisce. There is a lot to remember, now that I think of it. But when taken story by story, like walking that dog step by step, writing can transform those memories into a form to someday pass along. 

A Regular Nose

 

Sometimes, it just pays to look more closely at those hundred-year-old documents we peruse for family history purposes. If nothing else, that can be worth a smile, if not a chuckle.

When I closed out last month's research project on my mother-in-law's matriline, the chase led me to several unexpected people—son of a president, and a prince of pre-revolutionary Russia, for instance, each married to women sharing the same matriline as my mother-in-law.

With such international connections, of course there would be passports to be applied for. And, from our perspective as family historians, we know that passports can provide useful genealogical information.

I took a close look at one application, dated in 1870 for Laura Virginia Carr, by then wife of Chicago businessman Benjamin Lockwood Honoré. Her niece's husband, Chicago investor Potter Palmer, had signed to vouch for Laura on her application.

Since this was an application pre-dating the widespread use of photographs for such documentation, the paperwork included a verbal description of Laura's appearance. From that record, we learn that Laura had a high forehead, a sharp chin, a small mouth, and a regular nose.

A regular nose? What is that supposed to mean?

I thought that was an unusual way to describe any feature of a person's face, so I took a look at the applications for the rest of this traveling family. Laura's niece Bertha, wife of Potter Palmer, had a nose that was said to have been "straight." Though completing her application over a decade after Bertha's, her sister Ida—by then, wife of the president's son—had the same description: a "straight" nose. Likewise for Ida's daughter Julia, completing her application in preparation for her life as the wife of a Russian prince: "straight" nose.

Perhaps, back in 1870 when Laura Honoré completed her paperwork to travel abroad, the science of facial descriptions had not been so finely tuned. After all, it can take a thousand words to add up to one picture—and pictures were what those passport applications were lacking.

Isn't that just like the challenge we face when we look at any other dated document describing our ancestors' lives? We read papers filled with words carrying hundred-year-old baggage, terms that could have meant something entirely different to those who lived during that era than they would to us today. We are consigned to rely on reports of what eyes spotted back then, but which say nothing of the questions we would have asked of the same people today.

Somehow, with all those restrictions, our task is to recreate a picture of those ancestors, doing far more than merely counting those "regular" noses. Overcoming the nondescript terms we have to work with, our goal is to craft a family narrative based on those mundane facts that can not only speak to us, but can resonate with the future generations to whom we hope to pass along our message.

Above: Description of physical appearance of U. S. Passport applicant Laura Honoré, part of her passport application which was filed August 5, 1870, in New York City; image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Telling the Story—Whether Old or Young

 

It is a rare occasion when a young person chooses to attend any of our local genealogical society meetings. Still, that is often the topic of discussion among those involved in promoting the pursuit of our families' history. Face it: if we don't have younger generations willing to step up and take our place as family historians, the stories we've worked so hard to preserve may possibly be lost to any interested future generations.

Being painfully aware of that possibility, I found it encouraging to run across a newspaper feature earlier this month about a thirteen year old student who, as part of a 4-H project, completed charting five generations of her family tree. That accomplishment earned her a spot at the Ohio State Fair, as well as appearance of her photo and feature article in her local newspaper.

Following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother, Phoebe Cydrus began her student project four years ago, learning how to research online as well as interview living family members and document the lives of her ancestors. She is likely the youngest member of her county genealogical society.

Although those of us involved in local societies often bemoan younger generations' "lack of interest" in family history, that "lack" may not actually be the case. Rather than disinterested, young genealogists may instead be part of an invisible-to-us phenomenon. My own family history research has certainly benefited from the assistance of a young genealogist. And it is not hard to find signs of other young people involved in our favorite avocation, as well. We just need to know where to look to find them.

Take, for example, Ireland's Daniel Loftus, who bills himself as a "Teen Genie" on his website and has been active in blogging, on social media, in organizing fellow Gen Z researchers, and in launching genealogy-related initiatives. In recognition of his leadership role among his peers, the Allen County Public Library's Genealogy Center recently invited Daniel to speak on "Building a Bridge Between Generations."

Perhaps it is because of our own experiences that we know to look for others who share that designation of "young genealogist." When I hear people raise that familiar refrain about "lack of interest," I can't help but remember my own story. I was one of those young people who always wanted to know about my family's story.

It may be when we now see others stepping into the shoes we once wore that a connection lights up. That's how I felt when I ran across a mention of a blog post called simply, "A Love Letter to Young Genealogists." Even closer to my heart was blogger Kelly Wheaton's specific advice offered in that letter. "Don't forget you are part of a very old story," she reminds those young genealogists out there, wherever they are. "Once upon a time I was you," she reminisces, and closes with some advice:

...if you indulge me just a bit more—please focus on the stories. They are the most important things you may hear—you may not know it at the time—but trust me: every one you record will be a gift to future generations.

 

Job's Daughters

 

After seeing what little could be found on an ancestor from governmental documents of the early 1800s, the idea was to garner resources from non-governmental written material of the era—archived collections of journals or diaries, say, or other manuscript collections mentioning the Tison family of my fourth great-grandfather. Or at least newspapers. Surely some chatty columnist of a subsequent century would interview the aging grandchildren of Job and Sidnah Tison and press for stories of the "good ol' days" in Glynn County, Georgia. 

So much for plans. After wrapping up a survey, nearly empty-handed, of any newspaper mentions of their parents' legacy by the sons of Job Tison, I assumed there would be even less material to examine through the effort of searching for Job's daughters. How wrong I was.

My strategy was to avoid conducting a search from oldest to youngest. My reasoning? We already knew the oldest daughter, Naomi, predeceased her father. Though she was not named specifically, her place in the Tison family had been inferred by Job's 1824 will. With women being nearly invisible during that era, any hopes of finding Naomi's name in even an obituary was unlikely.

The next daughter, Sidney, was my third great-grandmother. Just seventeen at the point of her father's death, seven years afterward, Sidney married George McClellan, a son of her father's associate—and witness to his will, Charles McClellan—and was whisked away to a new home in territorial Florida. Since I've already researched her extensively, I passed on researching any mention of her name again, as I doubted I'd find anything new regarding her remembrances of her parents back in Georgia.

Sidney's younger sister Melinda was married barely a month after Job's passing—his minister friend Charles McClellan conducting the ceremony—to John Charles Richard. Less than ten years later, Melinda and her family had followed her brother's lead and moved to Alachua County in Florida. Even though her name can be found on sales of land in Alachua and nearby counties, I tend to doubt her name would surface in a search of Florida newspapers during those early years of statehood.

Likewise for the next sister, Susan Caroline, who was barely a teenager when her father passed. Hers was a mournful story, from what few mentions I can find in vital records. Widowed with a young son by the time she was nineteen, she remarried in only a couple years. By 1864, she, herself was gone.

It didn't really take as much thought as what appeared to go into those brief paragraphs above to choose my course of research action; I instinctually knew there would be more likelihood that the youngest sister's name would be found in public mentions than her older sisters. Thus, the hunt was on to discover any published mentions of Job's daughter Theresa Elizabeth Tison.

And what a cache I found—some of it even true, I'll wager.

At three years of age, Theresa lost her father, so Job would likely be even less than a fleeting memory. Sometimes, though, it is the ones who most keenly feel the lack of family connection who seem most drawn to learn more. Whatever the case, there were ample online resources for tracing Theresa's family story.

Apparently, a man ten years her senior had, in earlier times, been associated with Job Tison in the mercantile business. The man's name was Sylvester Mumford. Born in New York, this northerner had somehow found himself drawn to the southern coastal reaches of Georgia, where he opened up shop near Job's wayside inn—and, as reports had it, fared quite successfully.

Theresa and Sylvester Mumford's 1841 marriage produced two daughters, whom they named Oceana and Goertner. The family lived quite comfortably in a home built for them which was considered a jewel of the area. Pictures of the residence can still be found online, despite the fact that the home, by then long abandoned, had been badly damaged by fire in 2005.

Along with the photos can be found stories of the family who once had lived there. It was there that I gleaned a few references to Theresa's father Job Tison. More than that, though, was the continuation of the family's saga with their beautiful, nearly legendary daughter Goertner who, as the widow of Jay Curtis Parkhurst, lived to be nearly one hundred years of age.

Of course, along with the family stories and remembrances of the property came some reports of a more legendary sort—including conjecture about the Mumford fortune in relation to the missing "Confederate gold." Whether the stories about Goertner's father Sylvester Mumford were true, of course I cannot tell, but one thing is sure: at her passing, she bequeathed a significant sum for the educational support of Georgia's orphans, especially young women. Her legacy can be found even today on the website of one Georgia college, detailing the origin of the student residence known as Parkhurst Hall. And when the childless widow Goertner Mumford Parkhurst's will was presented in court in Washington, D. C., four southern states' newspapers reported on her legacy: besides recipients Georgia and South Carolina (location of one beneficiary orphanage), the story was carried in North Carolina and Alabama.

While the details of Job Tison's prominent granddaughter do not provide as much information as we'd hoped to see on the man himself, at least his shadow can be discerned in these remembrances of those subsequent generations. With that, we'll bid adieu to the tantalizing possibilities of the Mumford legacy, and the research goal of tracing Job Tison's origin for this year. But before we close the books on this family story, tomorrow we need to formulate a plausible research plan for when we pick up the quest in the future.  

A Genealogy Go Bag

 

My husband, ever the comedian, likes to corral the family—something akin to herding cats—and at the point when we should have left for a trip, quip, "Let's make like a baby and head out."

While it isn't quite as funny now, residents in our area received a message recently, advising much the same thing: park your vehicle in the driveway with the nose facing outward. And pack your go-bag.

Granted, the northern boundary of the wildfire raging nearby is still forty miles removed from us—as the wind blows, I might add—but the prudent heed warnings like that. Yesterday was our moment to make arrangements for what, hopefully, will be an unlikely scenario.

I did a lot of thinking about what might go in a go-bag. After all, my baggage has always included a lot of history. Perhaps that is a luxury of first-world life. Maybe not the kind to make the cut in more dire turns of events. But fire being fire, once it meets history, no matter how old or how irreplaceable, history doesn't win.

One of my husband's Facebook acquaintances happens to be a veterinarian, and, vets being vets, she dearly cares for our fuzzy four-footed companions. She happened to post a recommendation for items to include in this fire season's go-bag. Among her suggestions for preparation were the expected tasks: fill up your gas tank, keep enough of your prescription medications on hand for up to a week's supply, bring bottled water. Food, paper supplies, blankets, clothing. Logical supply choices got rounded out with the ultimate Boy Scout preparedness list of first aid materials, flashlights with extra batteries, and more. And stuff for those beloved pets.

That's when I got to thinking about those other aspects of daily life. Some people care for pets, some engage in what is supposedly America's number one hobby: gardening. But what about those of us who have that other popular hobby? We've amassed a collection of documents, photographs and heirlooms in remembrance of our ancestors. Sure, much of that is now digitized and stored online, but what of the tangible treasures passed down through generations for our safekeeping?

If you had to bolt out your front door at a moment's notice—well, other than that incessant early-warning smoke we've experienced since Wednesday—what else would you bring besides supplies to get you through the next seven days? Would any of it represent your heritage? If you had the time to think things out more clearly before that moment to head out, would something come to mind which absolutely needed to be preserved from past generations?

A hard question to consider, especially realizing the possibility that, upon your return, the legacy bequeathed to you might no longer be available to pass along to the next generation.

The Nieces and Nephews He Never Met

Tally Simpson, the voracious letter writer from the Confederate front of the Civil War, died before the close of hostilities. He never returned home to see how the lives of his siblings turned out.

Of course, I am one to wonder whether any of his family's descendants held his memory in their hearts long enough to pass it down to subsequent generations, so I went looking for who was left. Tally's sister Anna apparently never married, and his younger brother, John Garlington Simpson, died as a teenager before the war even started.

Tally's brother Dick, though, did marry and raise a family. Though Dick's letters home were also included in the book, Far, Far From Home, they ended at the point at which Dick was discharged from the Confederate army on account of his many illnesses. Once home, he and his sweetheart, Maria Louise Garlington, eventually married.

There were several footnotes in the book of war letters explaining the off-again-on-again wedding date for Dick and Maria. Maria's family suffered not one but two losses during the Civil War, and for the death of each brother, their wedding date was understandably postponed. That, however, was not the only reason their wedding date kept being pushed off. Besides Dick's recurrent illnesses, a lingering symptom of his days in the service, Maria herself encountered health problems.

A footnote in Far, Far From Home revealed that, in a private family history written by Maria, she "took diphtheria" one week before their wedding day. Not wishing to postpone any further this wedding event between two very much in love but terribly sickly sweethearts, on the appointed morning of their wedding, Maria was still sick in bed, but

got up and was closely wrapped up and went down stairs, was married, and immediately returned to my room where I remained for nearly a week.

With a start to married life such as this, one would expect the marriage to not last very long. However, as the book reported, Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Simpson enjoyed a marriage "which lasted forty-seven years and produced ten children."

Only problem: of Tally's nieces and nephews whom he never met, I could account for only eight of them. Could two have disappeared from view by means of an untimely death? I went back through the census records I could find, but was unable to discover any additional names for the Simpson household.

There was, however, another resource: that recently-remembered book—by Richard Simpson himself, published after his death—which included many genealogies of families from Pendleton, South Carolina, the place where Tally and his family had lived. Sure enough, R. W Simpson did not neglect to include his own family in the recounting of Old Pendleton's heritage.

Only problem: according to the father of the family, he listed not ten children, but nine: Margaret, Susan, Maria, Annie, Conway, Richard junior, John, Taliaferro, and Jean. (Though I have yet to research her line, I suspect Jean was born after the 1880 census and married before the 1900 census was taken.) Of those nine children of Tally's brother Dick, at least six married and had children of their own—some of those generations undoubtedly stretching down to our own times.

With that, I have my research work cut out for me, if not for curiosity over whether any of them will show up as my DNA matches, at least for the question of whether any of Tally Simpson's nieces and nephews passed down his legacy for their own descendants to know.

In the process of learning all that, I discovered yet another missed person. I had neglected to note that several of Tally's letters were addressed to "Sister Mary"—a name I had not included in my own charts for his family group record. As it turns out, this Mary became yet another reason why Tally had nieces and nephews to remember his name in their own family constellation—and a line I need to add to my own records, as well.   

More to This Story . . .

It all started because someone took the time to write the names on the back of a photo.

And so it is that the story of William and Kate Hopkins' photograph became the story of Alice Sharp Greer, and eventually also the story of Lee, the current researcher who is picking up the pieces passed along of the Hopkins family history.

In reflecting over this whole experience—the photograph in California that connected me with Lee in Minnesota about a couple from Kentucky—Lee made the observation at the beginning of this post.

You may have been wondering about a gap in this story of Alice Sharp Greer's family history records, considering that she died in 1966 and this is now 2018. What happened to all of Alice's carefully compiled records in the interim?

That, in itself, is another story. Lee's mother-in-law was downsizing and needed help with the process of getting everything ready to move into a smaller apartment. As Lee remembers it,

I pulled a large box out of a closet and asked what to do with it. She couldn't even remember what was in it. Opening it was like opening a time capsule. It was a box full of family treasures handed down from another Hopkins ancestor who had no children and each object had a carefully written note attached to it explaining what it was and who had owned it. Lots of names, dates, photos, Alice Greer's 1931 letter and a one-page genealogy of the family were in the box. For someone who loves antiques and old photos as I do, it was a gold mine. This family came to life for me out of the box and I felt it my calling to keep their memory alive.

We gain encouragement from others as we learn their story. We certainly can empathize with Alice's situation, one in which there was no one to whom the treasured family discoveries could be entrusted. As it turned out in Alice's case, there was a gap of years before that treasure was rediscovered—a hiatus enough to make us genealogists hold our breath, if not give up hope entirely for recovery. But somehow, in the end, things did turn out differently and the family's story was rescued.

This sort of experience, once shared, gives us the faith that, in the end, things will work out. As Lee reflected in an email to me after yesterday's post,

I will leave a box twenty or thirty years from now in a closet and hope for the right person to find it.

Some of us already know who will take up our research after we are no longer able to do it. But for those who struggle with the possibility of seeing that life's work abandoned to an unknown fate, it certainly is encouraging to know that sometimes—maybe more often than we realize—there will be someone to take up the call and continue our work.

After all, a family's story is never done.

Being the Bridge to Connect Past with Future

From time to time, I run across fellow genealogy enthusiasts who share their one disappointment with me: that they have no one to whom they can pass their decades worth of family history research. Here they have invested multiple hours of a lifetime, devoting it to the premise that the family's multi-generational story is too valuable to lose—and yet, due to various circumstances, that is precisely what threatens to happen.

There are reasons for the threat of such a loss. For some, no one else in the family is even remotely interested in those relatives of a bygone era whom they had never met and never cared to know. For other, though, there is no family to take an interest in the researcher's life work.

Such was the case of Alice Sharp Greer, niece of the subject of the abandoned family photograph I found in an antique shop in northern California. When I learned about her from Lee, the family history researcher to whom I offered to send William and Kate Hopkins' found photograph from Kentucky, I began to see Alice take shape as an encouragement for all those who are in the same position.

As Lee mentioned to me in our ongoing email correspondence, Alice had no children of her own. Granted, she had some nieces and nephews, but as many of us discover, that is no guarantee that those members of the next generation will take up the mantle we feel so strongly about.

Alice—the "family genealogist," as Lee put it—had a unique opportunity to pursue her calling over the years. It was thanks to her husband's business, coupled with her ability to travel with him on his rounds, while she detoured during business hours to conduct some research of her own. According to Lee,

Alice Greer's husband was a traveling salesman from Kansas City whose territory was western U.S. On his letterhead it says Materials Equipment Engineer—Casters, Trucks, Lift-Trucks, Pallet Lift-Trucks, Conveyors.

While John Harry Greer was busy at his occupation, Alice was busy sending out letters of inquiry in that era far removed from today's online conveniences. Relentlessly, it seems, at least from Lee's description:

Alice sent out many letters of inquiry on the family history on her husband's business letterhead—J. Harry Greer. I have one of these letters from 1931 and amazingly enough, a woman found another one from 1951 in her mother's papers and sent it to me, providing me a great deal of new information about the Hopkins [family], which I have been relentlessly researching ever since.

Those letters Alice sent out in 1931 and 1951 were only two examples of the many she wrote in her pursuit of the family's history. Just like the one from 1951 that a woman found and returned to Lee, there are many more of Alice's letters out there—and Lee would love to find them. That plea is even posted on Alice's Find A Grave memorial. (You knew a researcher as dedicated as Lee would include volunteering for Find A Grave in a genealogical to-do list, didn't you?)

Eventually, despite surely still having some questions unanswered, it became time to pass that genealogical baton to someone else. Alice Sharp Greer passed away October 26, 1966, in Concord, California—yes, in Contra Costa County, that place we've got our eye on—and all her research came to a halt.

With no children to step up and continue Alice's legacy, that might have been the end of the story. But whether Alice knew this all along, or whether it was a circumstance that evolved after her passing, there was someone who turned out to be more than interested in taking up Alice's mantle: it was Lee. All the pedigree charts, all the family group sheets—and more important, all those irreplaceable letters from Alice to relatives, and Alice's extended family to each other—were eventually passed along to someone who would take up where Alice left off.

And that is the encouragement Alice gifts us with, too, with her story. There will be someone to preserve our work, and to carry it forward. It just doesn't always come from the direction we'd expect. But however it comes to us, it transforms us—and those who are willing to step up and take our place—from a research dead end to a bridge that connects the treasures of our past with the family members in our future. 

 

Do You Remember . . .

I've just returned from visiting the Freedom Tower in New York City. It's both a sobering reminder of an occurrence we'll never forget, and a re-immersion into the mood of the moment when the unthinkable unfolded, before our eyes, in painful slow motion.

Despite the distance of the fifteen years separating us from the event, almost everyone alive then can recall precisely what they were doing, the moment they heard the news. Something about the urgency of the moment cemented those memories in our minds.

For those alive at the time, the same can be said for the precise moment the news struck the airwaves about the assassination of American president, John F. Kennedy. That moment will also be forever cemented in mind.

"Do you remember when" becomes a question which, for those still alive from that era, can bring back vivid memories paired with the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, too. No matter how far removed that event might have been, those still alive can give a report of the minute details of their day at the moment the news hit.

Perhaps it is the adrenaline rush that pairs with crisis situations. Whatever the reason for those undying memories, they provide a peek into the day to day life being lived by our relatives, leading up to the unexpected turn of events. While it would be too painful to recall, just after the event, when the distance of time makes it possible, not only is it therapeutic for people to share their memories of the moment, but it provides a micro-history for others to understand the feelings surrounding the event, coupled with the everyday life observations surrounding the crisis.

Sharing these memories also helps family members catch a glimpse of what life was like for a specific member of our family. Such micro-histories, shared and passed down to younger generations, allow the rest of the family—descendants, in particular—to see, in retrospect, what their ancestors had experienced through the dire passages of their lives.

The museum organizers were careful to preserve the memories of many who survived that day, back in September, 2001, drawn from many aspects. Many walks of life contributed to the collage of memories, representing all who were part of that tragic scene. Employees, neighbors, rescue workers, and many others lent their voice to recordings, explaining in sound bites the whole array of that day's experiences and its aftermath.

I couldn't help but wonder, walking through the displays at the museum, what became of those who were related to the men, women and, sadly, even children impacted by that day. My mind started envisioning a family tree of those involved in that day—what was the legacy of that experience?

My mind naturally runs in that direction, which helped me realize the same treatment could be applied to our own research. We can apply the same questions to our own family's memories—most certainly for those still with us who lived through the Second World War, or the Kennedy assassination—or even an event more close to the current time.

Admittedly, asking "Do you remember when?" concerning crisis events may not always be as fun an interview opportunity as recalling the birth of the first grandchild, or when one's baby had his first haircut or went off to kindergarten. Invoking a more introspective process, it can also be more revealing, both of the details of everyday life—with the crystal-clear recall embedded in that adrenaline-infused experience—and the personality-revealing observations shared in the process.

I know I certainly was instantly transported back to that morning as I walked through that museum. If asked, I could certainly fill pages with recollections of my everyday life from just before and just after hearing the news. Notes like that, captured in interviews, notes, and other recollections from family members, could provide us with the material to preserve our own family's stories in those moments of time when it seemed all the world stood still.

A Town's History

There are skills a genealogist possesses that can sometimes be cross-applied to other research pursuits. Over this holiday weekend, on an online community built for neighbors to keep in touch with each other, the idea was hatched in our locale to gather stories of the history of our community.

Instantly, the conversation thread was alight with buzz over the idea. People love to see history unfolded before their eyes, apparently. Everyone wanted to share a story heard from their grandparents about people who once lived here, decades ago. Some talked about their families settling here one hundred years ago. Names that are now on our street signs were surnames of the long-gone neighbors these people were remembering.

The challenge to such a project is that our community is, well, just that: a community. We don't count as a city; we're not incorporated, and with the anti-growth attitude around here, we may never have the tax base to form our own geo-political place. We can't even call ourselves a town, since our state doesn't include such terminology in their lexicon. The county board of supervisors gives us a nod with the designation, Municipal Area. But don't indulge yourself with visions of urban settlement; we are definitely the hub of a rural area.

Still, there is a community cohesiveness to our little cluster of acre-and-a-half parcels. And a history to go along with it. Better yet, we are a collection of people who have stories to tell—and they really want to tell those stories!

It didn't take much thinking about this kernel of a project to realize the skills a genealogical researcher can bring to the table. Only because of the holiday rush did I resist the urge to start pulling up records on Thanksgiving day, itself—but I know I can, and can picture the tangible excitement that would result over it when this group of neighbors gathers together to discuss their concepts of how this idea can become reality.

When groups are in a formative stage, the notion that something important is in the making is somehow not yet grasped. Perhaps it is because everyone involved in turning the dream into reality is too busy to realize that, in that very action, they are concurrently unfurling history, as well. Journaling the process as progress is being made is sometimes only the purview of those with precocious insight. The prevailing thought is: we aren't doing anything exceptional; this is what any reasonable person would do, given the circumstances.

Yet, aren't we grateful when we realize—afterwards—that someone thought to capture the daily grind for future reminiscence?

Above: "The Farmers' Lunch," 1618 oil on canvas by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Standing on the Shoulders of Those Who Have Gone Before

It may seem a strange project to select—the one I mentioned yesterday about transferring genealogical data from my antiquated XP-driven computer to my sleek, updated version. I mean, why not just start from scratch? Why not just rely on what can be obtained through the online resources so handily at our fingertips now? It does sound like an unnecessarily messy project.

I have a response to such an objection, of course. And it may sound somewhat like the reasoning behind utilizing those hundred-year-old genealogies still languishing on some library bookshelves: there is the possibility that we may learn something while benefiting from the hard work of those who have gone on before us. If nothing else, a project to reconcile an old fashioned research project with the multitude of resources now at our fingertips might yield a better product: a corrected version, now complete with documentation, that blends the work of the past with the insights of newly digitized records of the present.

There is, however, another reason I want to plod through this tedious process. And that "reason" has a name and a face. Not to mention, a story. Whenever those elements get added to a research project, for me, it heralds a turning point in the level of interest and investment of effort. It makes the whole thing more personalized.

Explaining all this will have to take me through a history lesson of online experiences in genealogy—albeit a brief history as, after all, we are only talking about a process which evolved from the 1990s onward. The explanation will also require that I introduce you to a fellow genealogical researcher who was quite thorough in her approach to discovering as many descendants as possible of the one family line we both shared. And all that will unfold, as we make our way through the upcoming week.

Any time you share a deep fascination in a specific topic with a friend, it makes for a special relationship. In genealogical research, it also supercharges the effort to find those missing family members of bygone generations.

Now that I'm going back and reviewing all those research notes I and this researching friend had exchanged over nearly a decade, I'm realizing what a gift that cooperative effort really was. And yet, as online friendships tend to be, it had its illusory side, which sadly manifested when the incorporeal and intangible could not possibly provide the connections one would expect in a face to face relationship.

And so, when a sudden health problem engulfed this researcher's life in a crisis, while her family rushed to do what was necessary, all I could tell, from my end of the ether, was that my emails were no longer being answered. After an interminable months-long silence, a very weakened friend did send a reply to tell me she had suffered a stroke—but assured me she was on the mend.

We "talked" a bit more, in that online way of sending and receiving emails and files, but after several months more, there was another long silence. This time, there was no message at the end to assure me she was still there.

Of course, my researching friend may still be there—somewhere on the other side of the country—but too ill to carry on the work that was the delight of her retirement years. That, however, I tend to doubt.

In retrospect, I realize what value there was in the material that was shared, and often wonder whatever became of all the multitude of files of raw data still waiting to be transformed into usable form. While I hope this woman's family didn't just chuck the material, like so many pages of scratch paper, I realize I have been gifted with much of this researcher's work. Even in the segments still requiring much fleshing out with verification—and in some cases, having only the bare bones of an outline of some parts of the family line—I have at least a smattering of what had been uncovered.

I realize I can build on this gift, even if I no longer have a connection with this talented and thorough researcher. As my husband is so fond of saying when he cautions young people not to just toss aside the insights of older generations, I can stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before me. While this researcher's work didn't come to me in the polished format of a hard cover volume, her work was just as thoroughly crafted. It is a gift—but only if I utilize what I've been given.

Despite the old format in which that gift currently resides, transcribed onto an antiquated version of Family Tree Maker on a computer built to run on a far-outdated version of Windows, this woman's work is still a viable contribution to the genealogical community—not to mention, to this particular family line. Transferring it to an updated version of genealogical software, plus verifying what may be done with digitized documentation available to us now, online, is the most reasonable way I can think of to honor those whose work has been of such benefit to me.

When I think of all the emails that passed between us, I want to go back and review them in light of what can be accessed online today. Maybe a reminder of past brick walls will prompt me to see what new material has come to light that will help skirt the research impediment of previous decades.

And when I remember that this was not an isolated process, this exchange of research ideas with one researcher, but was multiplied several times over with several family lines, I realize I've built my own archives of research history—a resource that may yield rich results, if only I can systematically review the holdings, and then put those findings to good use.

While it seems there has never been a better time to begin one's quest to find our roots, for those of us who didn't begin with this season's genealogy commercials, we can also lay claim to a treasure trove of research hints in our own rights, in the body of shared files and communications with like-minded genealogists. Just like benefiting from a legacy, we can only reap these riches if we recognize what's already in store and analyze that material with fresh eyes—and today's more powerful research tools.  

Adding Another Entry to the Future's Family History

Yesterday was one of those days we family historians clamor to find, written up, about our forebears, but not necessarily one we like to participate in, ourselves. The "going home celebration." The "celebration of life." No matter what euphemism modern man has come up with to re-designate the age-old event, it's still a funeral. And we're bidding someone goodbye for the last time.

When a family event is long anticipated—joyously, that is—we are quite glad to dutifully enter the name and respective date into our genealogical records. I think of every time my husband's ninety three year old aunt has another great-grandchild: she is sure to send the details in her next card to our address. We are quite pleased to have this sort of participation in building out our family tree.

Not so for those other events. While we add those final dates dispassionately for those far-removed from our current-day family, keeping the genealogical record straight for the current generation brings with the task a tear, a sigh, a long pause to remember. Yet, these changes to our own generation will become the records our future family will someday seek. Hopefully, they'll seek even more than just the bare bones of names, dates, and places of such events.

Hopefully, they'll have preserved for them—with all the care of the photo montage laid out for yesterday's service—all the very remembrances we wish we had had passed down to us of the relatives we never met, the ones before our time who meant just as much to their generation as our lost loved ones mean to us.

The Last Party

Does your family history include any life stories that ended abruptly with a last party?

If you've been following A Family Tapestry for the long haul, you know that the answer to that question, for our family, is an unfortunate yes. Make that a triple yes.

Though each instance brought untold pain and lasting change, there is something we've discovered, as a family, about taking that tragedy and transforming it into something that can benefit others.

Every year now—for over a decade, at this point—my husband shares the story of his three family losses during a national program for high school students known as Every 15 Minutes. The goal of his involvement is to make a difference in the lives of these young people—to connect with them in a meaningful way so that his family history doesn't have to become replicated as their family's loss.

I usually mention the Every 15 Minutes program here at the end of each year's season—explaining it in more detail in my posts in 2011 (after we returned from the preliminary research project to obtain photos and documents reconstructing the three collisions for my husband's presentation) and in 2012 (recapping the actual story of the Stevens family's three losses).

Once again, we've begun another season of the Every 15 Minutes program in California. As you read this, my husband is likely pouring his heart out to an audience of young people at a high school near our home, in their final assembly of the two day event. He's not doing what critics of the program assume—just getting kids to cry, which may be effective for the moment but soon forgotten—but convincing them to make strong, lasting commitments to help each other stay alive, to take care of their friends, to make a plan so "having fun" doesn't have to end in tragedy.

The E15 season is a taxing one: this year, there will be at least ten such programs in our county's high schools. The program is complex and takes a dedicated interdisciplinary team to run smoothly. Along with my husband's presentations, our daughter oversees the "moulage" process—the gory makeup for the simulated crash acted out for the student body—and does photography of the event. In addition, there is a videography team, a sound team, a fire and rescue squad, local police, highway patrol and even coroner. Local hospitals volunteer their facilities for filming and mock treatment scenes, as do the jail facility, the county courthouse and even the funeral home. Though demanding—and exhausting—the program is well worth the effort.

In a way, it is painful to relive such a story as the one my husband shares each year for this program. What supersedes that difficulty is the chance to let one family's story spare another family of repeating the same agony.

When people realize there is a painful past in their family's history, the tendency is to tuck such stories away, to gloss over the ugly parts. These, however, sometimes deliver the transformative essence giving others the courage to make necessary changes. Our pain becomes others' preventive antidote.

It takes courage to let go of such difficult memories and free them to do their work. We face embarrassment, sometimes even shame, along with the doubt that our story would make any difference at all. But if the dark side of your family's history has somehow transformed you, redeemed you, or made any difference for you at all, it will only be in the sharing that it can do the same for anyone else.

Reaching Out

There is a program in our city, run by the local Chamber of Commerce, dedicated to training young up-and-coming leaders from a wide spectrum of career backgrounds. For our city, the program was dubbed Leadership Stockton. But don't think that is original with them. Fill in the blanks after the first word, Leadership, with the name of your own city, and you will likely discover the same program is being offered by your own Chamber of Commerce.

There are Leadership [fill-in-the-name-of-your-city-here] programs all over this country. If I had looked, upon our flight's arrival in Tampa last month, I'd have discovered there is a Leadership Tampa. If, instead of heading to the coast, I had traveled inland, I would have found a Leadership Omaha, for instance. Or Leadership Nashville. Wondering about a smaller town? How about Leadership Pocatello? You can almost cobble together an A through Z list of Leadership Programs—you know, from Leadership Albuquerque to Leadership Zanesville—except that Zanesville didn't join in with the meme. But at least there is a Leadership Yakima. Maybe that is close enough.

The basic idea of the program is to assemble a class of promising movers-and-shakers-to-be and take them through a series of classes providing a spectrum of the city's challenges and concerns. Leadership Pittsburgh, for instance, provides a typical list of topics their program focuses on:

Economic Development, Inclusion/Race Relations, Neighborhoods and Community Development, Local Government, Arts, Entrepreneurship, Transportation/Transit, Public Education...

And then, of course, the all inclusive last item on the list: "etc."

This, as it turns out, can make an impressive breadth of knowledge about what ails a city—and infuses participants with ideas on just what can be done, with the right know-how and will power. Which is exactly why city chambers of commerce sponsor such programs.

I pay some attention to what happens at our local program because my husband is quite vested in assisting with some of the training. Just before he left for this year's launching event—a weekend retreat in the mountains—it occurred to me to ask him something. The local program takes participants through an orientation of various community programs—everything from city government to health care to social services—but where was the inclusion of heritage? We certainly do want tomorrow's leaders to develop a healthy respect for preserving our local history—both the visible in the architecture and landmarks around us, and invisible via the significance of pioneers and founding individuals and families. How do these leadership programs present that heritage?

As it turned out—my husband followed up on that question—there is a segment in our local program that touches on heritage. Hosted at one local museum—mostly an art museum, but which includes some local history displays—one class segment gives a nod to the concept that history matters.

"But can't we have more?" was my plea. For this whiny proposal, I had two reasons. First, as a member of the board of our local genealogical society, I am—of course—enthusiastic about promoting what it is we do to preserve the local heritage through our educational outreach. But we had also just launched a First Families program jointly with the county's historical society—something we hoped would eventually grow to provide a resource informing our community of its heritage.

Nobody will know about these efforts, however, unless we speak up about them.

It's the same thing with reaching out to other organizations: find a nexus in mutual interests. Genealogical societies can find a willing audience of potential adherents to our pursuit in a number of places. Speaking about our society programs at retirees' organizations, for instance, would be a timely effort, for that is one time when people find their thoughts turning toward how to preserve their own family's stories. Likewise, since first-time parents also find themselves getting inspired to think about those family roots, offering to address groups of new moms and dads might be another ready-made source for future heritage advocates.

The more I look, the more I realize the hunger out there to learn about genealogy. Perhaps that interest is being turbo-charged by popular television programs such as the Genealogy Roadshow or Who Do You Think You Are? No matter what the inspiration, though, it certainly is worth grabbing the opportunity. I think a great deal about the notion of "passing it on"—in whatever form we can.

As for that leadership group at my city's chamber of commerce, apparently they were open to receiving more information, as well. If I can make the deadline and assemble a packet of community-wide resources for people interested in our city's heritage, I'm on.   

Pulling the Plug

A Detroit woman, who suddenly found herself a single mom needing to support two sons, went to work as a domestic servant in the homes of the city's more fortunate families. When her boys headed home to watch TV after school every day—while she worked several jobs to make ends meet—she noticed one thing about her clients: that "wealthy people read a lot of books."

There was a corollary to her discovery: those people didn't spend a lot of time watching television.

That was enough to clinch it for this observant mother. Her informal after-school program made a radical change. No more television. Afternoons were now spent at the library. And she gave her sons a weekly assignment to read two books. Worse, they even had to write a book report on each one.

That might have been the scenario in a lot of homes over the decades, especially with the advent of the working mom trying to manage a household in absentia—whether single or married. But there is a compelling conclusion to this act of matronly determination.

Of course, I wouldn't have stumbled upon this story if it hadn't been for the gift of reading. I don't personally know the man telling this story—author, publisher and leadership coach Michael Hyatt, who shared it in his blog yesterday—nor do I know the man whose mother this is. But I do know that the subject of this vignette is also, himself, now a best-selling author and respected professional.

And through his story, I'm witness to the phenomenal change that can be bestowed upon a life through the power of reading. As you can imagine, back when this successful man was that young schoolboy, his was not a story of privilege, but of struggle. The transformation of being transported through books to worlds he might not otherwise have known might have been gradual, but the result was palpable.

Reading his story reminded me that we, too, have stories—not only stories of our own life experiences, but those belonging to our family's history. And just as the books this man read made a difference in his life, our stories—if shared—may turn out to bring a change in the lives of others.

Oh, I'm not talking about those dry recitations of genealogies—though those have a place in well-documented research. It's what took place in "the dash"—that individualized space in between the two numbers inscribed on our ancestors' headstones—that can provide the inspiration. When we include stories like those, our family histories not only come alive, their lessons can benefit others.

Just as both Michael Hyatt and Dr. Ben Carson have reason to champion the residuals of reading—expanding personal horizons, instilling a sense of an internal locus of control, and focusing on an uplifted sense of self-image—we as family historians can preserve the personal experiences and lessons of our ancestors and pass down the stories which also provide such benefits of reading. Our stories can reach a broader audience with an enlarged purpose behind our sharing.

You know how enthusiastic I am about encouraging people to share their families' stories. As much as I can, I'm putting that message into practice, too. But whether yet another underdog-becomes-celebrity is a story to your liking—or even one you find in your heritage—you have to acknowledge there is something nearly awe inspiring about the changes reading can bring about in a person's life.

I'm sure no one knew it more than that single mother in Detroit—the one who pulled the plug on life-as-usual for her latch-key children. Not only did she realize the power of those weekly reading assignments for her sons, but she must have felt that conclusion acutely in her own life. You see, though her boys may not have realized it at the time, when she returned those weekly book reports back to them—each one marked like a teacher wielding a red pencil might have done—she had no idea what had been written on those pages. She couldn't read them. She, herself, was illiterate. But somehow, her decision imprinted a priceless message in the heart of the next generation. And left the rest of us—who don't even know her—with an inspiring example.  

A Daughter's Work is Never Done

I can't blame you if you had assumed, after reading yesterday's post at A Family Tapestry, that I would now delve into finding the next generation of ancestors in those maternal lines still puzzling me. If you had drawn that conclusion, I would normally have heartily congratulated you on your astute observation.

But sometimes, Life happens.

Now, don't go assuming that this means an unfortunate downturn of events. On the contrary. Remember: not only is there bad stress, there is also good stress. This is one of those good times.

Yesterday, I finally—yes, unbelievably, finally!—completed the last step in sending in my application to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. All, incidentally, in time to be included in this 125th anniversary year of celebration! It's, um, only been about three years since I officially started the process. And, just as it was begun three years ago, yesterday it ended over another cup of coffee.

In what should have simply been a meeting to provide a festive closure to such a long process, after affixing my signature to the drawn-up application, I guess I couldn't bear the thought of having it all "over." The thrill of the hunt is too alluring for me. I had to have a new chase to look forward to.

With a smile still on her face—incredibly, after all those months of coaching me through the research process—my genealogy angel was quite gracious as I grasped for ideas on a next challenge. Currently serving as Registrar of our local D.A.R. chapter, professional genealogist and fellow genea-blogger Sheri Fenley has exhibited the patience of a saint in coaxing me toward closure on this one project. And now, I want to do this to her again?

From somewhere in the back of my mind came the realization that, not only could my daughter also be a D.A.R. member by virtue of my maternal line's Patriot—Zachariah Taliaferro—but she could doubly qualify for membership, thanks to her paternal grandmother's history, as well.

In fact, at the close of that same year in which I initiated my pursuit of D.A.R. membership, it was in writing about two people in my mother-in-law's line that I realized I was researching a possible Patriot. His name was Lyman Jackson, father of the New York born John J. Jackson that I suspected had come from such a heritage.

Indeed, the further I pursued that line, the more indicators I stumbled upon. For one thing, I did locate enough material to show me that John J. Jackson, himself, had served during the War of 1812—stationed, at one point, at a fort on the Mississippi River near Saint Louis.

Once I zeroed in on John J. Jackson's wife, however, I also realized that she, too, was descended from a Patriot—Sarah Howard Ijams was daughter of William Ijams.

While you may think I am going overboard in seeking to link three different Patriots to my daughter's D.A.R. membership, I have an additional reason for this next project: I have two sisters in law and two nieces who may, by virtue of a properly-assembled paper trail, also avail themselves (should they wish to do so) of membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. And pass down to yet another generation the awareness of our part in our nation's history.

That's one way to keep it all in the family.

The Significance of Memories Lost

If you live in a country which, once, had the habit of celebrating this time of the season as a holiday, you may recall the traditions that once prompted the urge to shop for a dressy pastel outfit, or gather as extended family for a commemorative meal. As I did my shopping yesterday—first at the local mall, then stopping at the grocery store on my way home from town—I wasn’t so sure anyone remembers, now.

It was distressing, seeing the racks filled with so many new clothes—packed so tightly as to make it impossible to pull out a hanger to even take a look at what was being offered for sale. Though the mall’s parking lot was nearly as full as it usually is, right before Christmas, it seemed all the people in town wouldn’t be enough to buy all that was offered for sale there. We are so overburdened with stuff. And yet, that is all this holiday weekend has been reduced to: an essence of things. More things. The merchandisers have stolen the meaning of our holidays—our holy-days—and we’ve let them.

Not that I begrudge anyone their recovery from recent economic downturns—I’m glad those times are past us. Shop away, my friend, if that is what you intend to do. More power to those who have the means to do so. But don’t let it be all that your life is reduced to. All of us have tokens of a heritage much richer than such trinkets.

That episode from the day’s errands became the evening’s dinner conversation. During the course of the discussion, I realized that not many people can even relate, now, to such historic upsets as the Great Depression. A good percentage of our current population doesn’t even have recollections of being raised by someone who was a child of the Depression. No stash of saved bread bags—there, mind you, not because Mama was a firm believer in recycling. She wasn’t doing this to Save the Earth; she was doing it to save pennies.

A prompt from Twitter, featuring a recap of recent interesting Tweets, showed up in my inbox as encore to the day’s observations. One, from Findmypast UK’s “Dapper Historian” Myko Clelland, displayed photos of four elderly women and commented,

These are the last four people on earth born in the 1800s. The stories they must be able to tell!

Considering the implication that these subjects must each be well over one hundred years of age, the virtue of their continued existence would be that we could, in theory, pepper them with whatever questions our curiosity now instigates—though the challenge would be to see whether they could actually remember what answers to provide.

Despite that continual litany heard by fellow genealogists the world over—“If only I had thought to ask them when they were alive”—we do have recourse in this dilemma. It’s known as print media: those books, newspapers, journals, letters and other documents preserving the words of prior generations via ink on paper.

The only problem is: they are silent testaments. They need someone to serve as catalyst to get their message out. To lift the stories off the pages of the past and put them back in circulation.

That is where we come in: we are the story-tellers. We are the ones who connect the memories of the past with a new generation of rememberers. We are the connectors linking our collective past with the agents of the future.

Whether you are a blogger, actively telling your story to everyone who chances upon your digital domain, or a researcher with the best of intents to “someday” pass that story along, I hope you realize the crucial role you play in keeping your family’s—and your culture’s—story alive.

Stories only live as long as they are still told. Their meaning retains its viability only as long as they are being shared. What is important to you will be important to no one else, once you are gone,  unless you see yourself as the vital link you are—and put that belief into action. Otherwise, your valued family traditions and history will devolve, first, into hollow tokens and eventually, into meaningless trinkets of a bygone era few can even understand.

Above: "The Frugal Repast," painting by French artist Émile Friant; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Passing It Along...

When it comes to everyday activities, I spend a lot of my time, working in my home office. I guess you could say I don’t get out much. So when it comes to getting together with friends for coffee, you don’t have to ask me twice.

One of the friends I meet with on a regular basis is someone I’ve known from two prior jobs, years ago—when I transferred from one agency to another, this friend was not far behind. Though neither of us now works for that office, we have managed to keep in touch over the years.

Recently, this friend has fallen in love with genealogy. That is not surprising. I’ve found that there are two types of significant life events that are likely to attract people to the pursuit of their own family history. One is the birth of a child—or, sometimes, a grandchild. The other is retirement.

In this friend’s case, the life event prompting her to pursue her roots was the latter: retirement. Able to take an early retirement, my friend is now free to travel to the far-flung locations where her ancestors had once settled. In sports-car-speak, you could say she accelerated from zero to sixty in mere seconds—in other words, she was one of those fortunate researchers whose forebears were significant enough to be documented in published history. Within a year, she was researching ancestors from the 1600s.

If you are envious of such a position, don’t be. Wait until I finish the rest of her story. You see, there’s a reason the prompt that led her to genealogical research was the final of my scenarios: she has no grandchildren, because she has no children. She is the last leaf on her branch.

For people like that, the enthusiasm over genealogical discoveries is overshadowed by the melancholy realization that there may be no one to whom she can, someday, pass along all her hard work. Despite the joy of the chase, the exhilaration of learning about significant ancestors, there comes that dull thud of the hollow realization that there is no one to pass along that heritage to.

When we meet for coffee and discuss our latest genealogical conquests, I keep consoling my friend with hopeful thoughts like, “Someone will come along who will be interested.” When I say that, it almost has the ring of faith more than fact. How am I to know what will happen in her future? And yet, that feeling comes out pretty strongly.

For my friend’s sake, let’s not talk about those many stories of impatient family members tossing out boxes and boxes of hard-won research conquests after a genealogist’s demise. In my defense, from time to time, I have heard stories of family history researchers who have found ways to pass along their work to a distant family relative—narrowly escaping a death-bed photo-finish.

Yesterday, while plugging along in the tedium of examining the descendants of my Taliaferro roots—I told you I am zealously combing through the entire line in search of the nexus with my mystery adopted cousin—I found a passage that can serve as encouragement for those in my friend’s position.

Right now, I’m following the line of descent of Dr. John Taliaferro, younger brother of my fifth great grandfather, Zachariah Taliaferro. Among other resources, I’ve been using a genealogy published by Willie Catherine Ivey, Ancestry and Posterity of Dr. John Taliaferro and Mary (Hardin) Taliaferro.

Do you ever look at someone’s published family tree—whether in an old book such as this one, or online in a place like Ancestry.com—and wonder where the writer falls within all those many branches? I do. So, of course, in reading Ms. Ivey’s book, I wondered if I would find her connection.

By the time I made it to page forty one of her narrative, I had found her surname. Her line of descent had gone from Dr. John through his son Richard Taliaferro to Mary Hardin Taliaferro Lingo to Richard Taliaferro Lingo to William Slaughter Lingo to Elizabeth Lucinda Lingo, Willie Catherine Ivey’s mother. All in the space of nearly two hundred years between Dr. John’s birth and the publication of Ms. Ivey’s book.

The author’s mother had married a man by name of Henry Jones Ivey, a resident of Tennille, Georgia. Together, the couple had five daughters.

It was the narrative the author wrote about the eldest of the Ivey children that gifted me with support for my conviction that childless researchers may well find others from a younger generation to take up their quest. Of the Iveys’ eldest daughter, Mary Lillian Ivey Davis, was written:

Several years before the death of Mrs. Davis, she began tracing her family history, and had she lived, it was her intention to compile a sketch of the descendants of Dr. John Taliaferro. Since her death, numerous records have been added to those she collected and have been incorporated into this sketch.

Of course, there is a time for every purpose—even the purpose of finding someone who can carry on your quest to document your family’s roots and history. Whether you are a researcher with many children of your own—or none at all—you will some day be faced with the dilemma of what to do with your countless hours of tireless research. While it is always imperative to make contingency plans in the event no one steps up to inherit your researcher’s mantle, I can’t help but share the faith that somehow, some way, there will be someone who will eventually express an interest in taking over where your work leaves off. Otherwise, I would not have had the Ivey genealogy of the Taliaferro family to consult—it turned out to be a sequentially-developed joint work of family members. I can’t help but believe that will someday be the case for my friend as well.

Family Tradition: Pass It On

Whether you are celebrating Easter today—Resurrection Day, as many prefer to call it—or have been celebrating Passover this past week, you have been participating in a vital force that preserves culture in such a way that permits it to be passed on to future generations. “Culture is religion externalized and made explicit,” claimed Henry van Til, author and nephew of the famed Dutch theologian Cornelius van Til, and the traditions we re-enact today make visible to our children the beliefs we hold as essential to sustaining our philosophy of life.

How do we pass down our beliefs and traditions? It is not solely through the words we say, I’d like to maintain, but through the actions we take and the stories they tell.

My daughter, now a junior in college, has been serving as tutor in the home of a conservative Jewish family. It has been a cultural education for her as she observes the manner in which the adherents to a religion very different from her own apply the quote I mentioned above, from a theologian and adherent of a Calvinist Christian perspective. While these two belief systems are quite divergent from each other, we can still see the concept in operation in the traditions this Jewish family upholds in daily life.

Think about it: the culture of the Hebrew (Jewish) people has been passed down for thousands of years now. How did it preserve itself through such a long span of time? Those beliefs were not mere litanies weariedly recited by generation after generation. They were kept alive by story and by re-enactment. Their traditions included retelling the story of Passover in a family setting, with even the food they were eating serving as symbols of a pivotal moment in their people’s saga. The actions, the drama of the episodes, the sharing via family, all helped to bond these people to their history—to their story.

The Christian observances of this past Holy Week also serve to pass our heritage to the next generation. The meaningful ways we transpose concepts into actions we can absorb through our five senses find their way into the hearts of our children—a place where they may be safely harbored, cherished, and preserved.

In some ways, our culture’s viability is fragile—only as certain as the tenuous link between one generation and the next. It is not that we pass down our beliefs from one generation to the next, but how we do it that will count. The childlike eyes that brighten at candlelight stories told by a beloved grandfather, or the participatory factor of the re-enactment of a historic event: these are the highlights that, for a new generation, bind meaning to the memories of bygone years.

In a much humbler way, we who are careful to preserve our own families’ stories can take our cue from this lesson on how the Hebrew line preserved their culture for millennia. We, too, are pivotal: only one generation away from seeing our families’ stories forever forgotten. It is when we create that spark, not only of excitement but of personal identification with the experiences of our ancestors, that we equip that next generation to carry our stories forward.


Above: Painting, "Easter," by Russian artist Mikhail Andreyevich Mokhov (1819-1903, also identified as Mihail Mohov); in the public domain; courtesy Wikipedia.

Keeping Bygone Holiday Traditions Alive

I remember Mr. Yung. He lived in one of those dark yet stately Victorian homes lining the street just north of my childhood church. At my age, I thought surely the man must have been in his nineties. The place he still called home had a front entryway that hadn’t been used for years—but the kitchen door that connected him to the outside world was easily accessed by simply going “around the back.”

With Christmastime approaching, someone in the youth group was casting about for an appropriate activity for the young ones to enjoy for that last December meeting.

“Let’s go Christmas caroling,” someone suggested.

The schedule was set and the meeting place designated turned out to be, of all places, Mr. Yung’s home. Of course, with so many young participants in need of transportation, parents were also invited to join the activity.

That was a good thing. Old houses like that can sometimes seem creepy to the kind of people once referred to as “youngsters.”

Back then, I was one of those “youngsters.” And this was one of those times I didn’t mind my mother hanging around.

My mom, predictably, knew exactly where the man’s house was. At the appointed time, she drove right up to the place and down the long rutted dirt passageway alongside the house. We stopped at the end of the building, got out of the car and headed toward the back porch.

Mr. Yung met us halfway. He hardly waited for introductions to be made to plant a fish-cold kiss on my cheek. A wet one. He was quite excited to see the swelling crowd assembling at his place.

You could tell this didn’t happen for him often.

A weak round of caroling for practice in front of our host and home base, and we were off on our musical rounds. We capped off the evening with hot chocolate, back at the old Victorian place.

It has been a long time since that caroling expedition with my youth group. In the interim, I’ve moved to another home and another church. I’ve changed schools, then colleges, then jobs. Somewhere along the way, I found myself in a role on the opposite end of the spectrum when someone spoke up again with the suggestion, “Let’s go caroling.”

Christmas caroling, these many years since, has become quite a different proposition. You can’t just go knocking at an elderly person’s door after dark and expect a warm welcome. These things have got to be planned in advance.

Even the words to what I’d assumed were well-known tunes had to be printed in little booklets to be carried with us. Which meant flashlights had to be remembered (we opted for those phony, battery-operated flickering candles—but hey, they were a convenient plus for the ambience).

What has amazed me, after all these years, is that while these are the same old songs with the same old words, to the changing parade of faces singing them in the candlelight, they are strangely new. The old melodies just aren’t sung much, anymore.

And yet, after it is all over—we’ve visited nearly two dozen shut-ins in homes, care facilities and even hospitals—people never fail to enthusiastically exclaim, “Let’s do this again!”

Once again, we’ve acquainted a new generation with a heart-warming tradition from our parents’ past.

Some things are just worth preserving and passing along.


Above right: "Carols" by eminent Ukrainian realist artist Mykola Pymonenko, circa late nineteenth century; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.