He Knew He Was Right

It is my Dad’s forebears whose lives I’ve spent so much time pondering, as information about them is more readily accessible than it is for the ascendants of my Mom, who was a second generation American. The more I pieced together the different branches of my family tree, the more it often felt like a puzzle—whereas friends and family were playing online games looking for treasures, wizards, or whatever, I was on a more noble quest, seeking real people from long ago. Every time I found another ancestor, it felt like I found another prize, and was eager to move on to the next level, or generation, as it were. I would try to secure the basics of their existence—date and place of birth, marriage date, date of death, etc, and refer to as many sources as possible to obtain or verify that information. However, when asking too directly about when a relative close to her died, my aunt gently chastised me for what must have seemed to her as a lack of compassion, teaching me a valuable lesson: O...

I like genealogy. I have put together a widely branched family tree, the result of pouring through thousands upon thousands of old records, making many visits to cemeteries and genealogy centers, and writing/talking to many relatives, near and far (both in terms of proximity and relation). Well, I didn't do all the work: Some of my forebears lived long lives, stayed on the same farm for 200 years, and did a great job of passing along family information from generation to generation. In 1966, my Dad’s father received a letter from his sister, outlining the names and birth/death years of this line of the family, which was traced back into the late 1600s. In about 4th grade, I remember having to create a family tree for school, and being happy that my parents could help me make a tree that went as far back as my great grandparents. We learned of this letter a short time after I completed my project, but we were still happy to add its information to the tree. When most people trac...