New Year, Old Directions

A few days ago, I received an email from a very distant relative who is attempting to put together his family genealogy, into which I apparently fall. After sending him the requested information, I became curious. I knew that I had some relatives from Germany, and rumors of someone from Ireland, but I didn't really know that much about them (other than one particular couple who had a suicide pact to hang themselves in their barn, which they did).

Since my husband was aware of a rather lengthy and fascinating history for his family that involved three French brothers, some Mohawk, and someone getting shot by the Iriquois, I started doing some digging on his side - both his last name and the story are unique enough to make for some decent results. I did manage to get all the way back to France on his father's side, through the French brothers (who are actually Quebequois and one of whom WAS shot by an Iriquois) to about 1630.

Then I attacked mine, using the information from the distant relative and a little more dredged up by my obliging mother. I made it to Ireland fairly quickly on my father's side, but also to Prussia. To Prussia AGAIN on my mother's side, to York in 1603, and then discovered that I have one string of relatives that is VERY old blood New England. From Milford, Connecticut (and one straggler from Boston, I kid you not). In 1605. I didn't know there even WAS a Connecticut in 1605. So I guess (as Jenno remarked) I was destined for New England. My family roots are here, after all.

But all this makes me think about why we, as a species, are so interested in our histories. Do I become at all different now that I know where my ancestors came from? Of course not. Am I fascinated by coincidences and connections (like the fact that my progenitors left England during the reign of James I - and were alive there at the same time as Shakespeare)? Of course I am. But fundamentally, none of this information makes me a different person.

What is perhaps more interesting (as K pointed out) is that we as a species seem to oscillate between a desire to trace our past and a desire to expunge it. Germans who had relatives in the Nazi army, for instance, do not talk about and wish not to remember that fact. Often, when our own ancestors immigrated to the United States, they changed their names (as in K's case) or eliminated connections with their past, choosing not to record names, dates, and facts about themselves or their parents. Which, naturally, is why it is so difficult for us to dig it up now.

But, ultimately, I think our desire to trace our past is a desire to know more about the clan that formed us, to understand why we were raised with the religion, the ideologies, the nation that we were, and to make informed decisions about where we want the road of life to take us. If we know where our forebears have been, we can decide to revisit their journeys in expectation of our own or to avoid them entirely. We can use our past as a lens through which to contextualize our present.

But it is, I think, also a way of wondering and researching what it would have been like if we had lived in that past - if we, our personalities and minds had been born in another age, another nation, another culture. And we can do this, imaginatively speaking, though our ancestors.

It is, however, important to remember, as we embark upon this time-travel, that the future is always more important than our past, because it is into the future that we are really traveling, and while we may carry the past and present with us, we should always remember to keep our eyes forward - lest we miss seeing that rock and stumble or fall.