I suppose we all have our reasons for researching our family history. I think many of us search for stories, uncertain if we are looking for validation or a way to make changes in our own lives. We can be sure, though, that we will find stories. Whether we like them or not is another story.
One statistic I heard is that only one in five stories will be good news. For me personally, they are all good news. I just want to know. It would be nice to find kings and queens, or rich uncles looking to leave me a fortune. So far, after all these years, no such luck. On the other side of that see-saw, I haven’t found anything truly awful, either. The thing I have taken away from this is that I get neither the credit nor the blame for my ancestors’ choices.
Although my maiden name of Giordano is rumored to indicate an ancestor who participated in the Crusades (went to the Jordan River – Jordano – Giordano) I have yet to find the proof. My friend and I did find proof of an ancestor who went to the Crusades with King Richard the Lionheart in her family. Others have Mayflower roots, royal lineage, connections to inventors. It is surprising how some of these happy stories have gotten lost through the years. Sometimes a family proudly passes on the accomplishments of ancestors, sometimes family lines break and the history gets lost.
These days therapists do family history research to see how past addictions may impact current struggles. So not only do we get to enjoy the past, but we may be able to take something useful from it. Luckily time and distance usually make it bearable to hear the less pleasant aspects of our discoveries. Many authors and speakers have shared their “bad news” sometimes with chagrin, often with humor, a sort of tongue-in-cheek “It wasn’t ME!” attitude. I have heard tales of bigamists, embezzlers, outright thieves. Court records are some of the best-kept records in colonial America, so it’s usually easy to find unfortunate proof of the times our ancestors crossed some line. One of the fun things for me in this particular pursuit is finding some of the “crimes’ of the past. There were women who were fined for having an unguarded tongue, and men who served time in the stocks for failure to attend church.
We should also place our energy in the promise of the future. Today’s lives are the ancestors of tomorrow, and Mocavo has provided us with a free tool to get our kids and grandkids started on the family history journey. Here is a link to a free 35-page PDF booklet to print for your kids and grandkids. It is available at https://zapthegrandmagap.com/snippets/MyTimeMachine.pdf
It is a fun way for children to begin recording their own lives for posterity, while guiding them into the fun and reasoning behind genealogy. The best benefit of printing and using this book is possibility of a joint effort and the closeness it can build between you and a child in your family.
Editor’s note: Columnist Nina Brawn of Dover-Foxcroft is a longtime genealogy researcher, speaker and teacher. Her semimonthly column is sponsored by the Aroostook County Genealogical Society which meets the fourth Monday of the month except in July and December at Cary Medical Center’s Chan Education Center at 6:30 p.m. Guests are always welcome. FMI contact Edwin “J” Bullard at 492-5501.
