Grab and Keel

Rather than attempt to get over the snowy pass this year, we stayed home for the holidays. The last time we stayed home, a little stray football, with legs, gave birth in our closet, to five squirmy kittens. That was in 2002. While one died as a young adult, the rest of the kittens, and Momma cat have been with us since. 

In the season of giving, gifts often come in unexpected ways.

Sometimes, it’s the chance to get caught up on a report you couldn’t finish at work. Other times, it’s as simple as the fact that the turkey fit in your oven, and that you have one to cook.

This holiday, I spent time looking a gift of years past from my Mother. They are  the family genealogy records, my grandmother compiled, and my mother expanded. 

As a young person, I had mixed feelings about their endeavor.  My grandmother had wanted to prove her lineage to the extent that she could validate revolutionary war heritage. While I believe she did this, I don’t know to what end. She was a member of the Eastern Star. She may have qualified for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. (DAR). 

My mother took up the mantle of family genealogy research, in the late sixties and early seventies. During this period there was an all-around national interest in genealogy and lots of other folks were suddenly finding coats of arms, and important relatives. She belonged to the Genealogical Forum in Portland, Oregon and spent many hours there.

I grew to dislike the subject. It seemed gratuitous to look for the victories, heraldry and magnificent failures of past ancestors. These were not my accomplishments, I was not special or different because of whatever my ancestors might have done. Also, the organizations to which my grandmother aspired, seemed overly religious, conservative, rote. As a budding leftist, for many years, I behaved contrarily. Just like Momma cat, I wanted acceptance for what I was and what I brought, not from whence I sprang. 

Strangely though, few years ago, I asked my Mother if she still had any records. I think I was ready to accept the idea of a family saga. My daughters turned out, surprisingly, to be interested; I think my granddaughter is as well.  So here I am, at a family time of the year, searching the genealogy records, looking for families, stories, instances, and history.

To carry the family history forward is to enlighten posterity. It is the stuff of novels, and of understanding. It keeps us from repeating the same mistakes. I hope your family stories turned out well this season. Whether they are bad, or good, short or long, they are part of the adventure of life, the fabric of humanity. Take the time to record them.

I Own My Vote, PUMA, The Denver Group, The New Agenda