I haven't always been caught up in genealogy. For all the years my father was interested, I was indifferent. I think that's true of many younger folks, who are so busy taking care of the next generation, that they can't afford the time or energy to invest anything in the previous generations, whose members are mostly gone.
I had been retired for several years before I caught the genealogy bug. Sadly, it wasn't until after my father died, meaning I never was able to share his passion while he was still here. So I've been asking myself why I've finally become interested., and I think I have the answer.
Genealogy combines many of my interests in one cohesive set of activities. First, it appeals to my love of history, my undergraduate major. Now there is history and there is history. Unfortunately, history, as taught by many high school and college instructors, can be deadly dull, which is why in college I concentrated on the most exotic subjects offered at my university: Russian history, Middle Eastern history, and Medieval history. American history seemed too tame at that time.
The same is true of genealogy. It can be dull or it can be exciting. At one time, all genealogy meant to me was list of names and dates, but now it is a way to personalize history, to place my ancestors in a given time, and learn what life was like for them, surrounded by the historical events that once were simply facts to be memorized for a midterm exam. For instance, the Mayflower never meant much to me. Big deal - a bunch of religious protestors got on a boat and came to this land four hundred years ago, and half of them died in the first year. But when I learned that at least three and possibly seven of those passengers were ancestors of my husband, it made me want to know more about the Mayflower and the early American settlements. American history suddenly came alive.
I've looked at other historical events and tried to find ancestors associated with it. I've found ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and WW II. I've found people who died around the time of the influenza epidemic and wondered if that was the cause of their deaths. I've found ancestors who came to America shortly after the Potato Famine in Ireland, and wondered if that influenced their decision. I've even found a possible ancestor who was living at the time of the Norman Conquest of England.
The second interest that was satisfied by a study of genealogy was my love of psychology. Reading old newspaper articles about ancestors gives me a glimpse into their lives and the problems they endured as well as the supportive structures they relied upon. I've learned how many ancestors died because of problems that could easily be resolved with modern medicine. The Rh factor caused the death of a great aunt in childbirth, for instance. I have inherited the same Rh problem, and were it not for a simple injection I was given after the birth of my children, the same could have been my fate.
I've learned from obituaries that almost all of my Catholic ancestors in Ohio were members of "The Holy Name Society" at their local parishes. Since the Holy Name Society was never a big thing in my California Parishes, I had to Google it. My ancestors, it seems, were quite religious. Several even became priests and nuns.
Further back, I noted that almost all my ancestors had enormously large families. It wasn't unusual for someone to have 10, 12, or 14 children. Usually the births were every two years, and in most families one or two of those children didn't make it past infancy. So many times, I've wondered what life was like for these ancestors, who never had the option of planning their families with modern birth control methods.
I've also noted, particularly with the men and women in the early American colonies, that people did not remain unmarried for long, even after they were widowed, which many were. If a woman with many children lost her husband, she was most likely married to another man within a year. The same for men whose wives died. I don't imagine most of these were love matches, but marriages of necessity or convenience. Women had no way to support themselves and men had no way to work and care for their motherless children. I can't begin to imagine what that was like. I think of all the couples with marital problems I have counseled over the years, how many have told me they no longer felt any love for their spouse, and I think of these ancestors from 400 years ago, married to someone in order to survive. For them, love never even entered into it.
And finally, genealogy satisfies my interest in mystery. For years I have read detective stories, and loved trying to figure out "who done it" along with Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Kinsey Millhone, Kay Scarpetta, or Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. With genealogy, I am presented with mysteries every day. Why did this particular ancestor disappear after a certain date? Where was another ancestor born? Which of the two men with the exact same name, born in the same town, at almost the same time, was my ancestor? Why did some ancestors come to America? Why did others stay in their native countries?
So a study of genealogy is more than just gathering a list of dead relatives and writing their names on a family tree. Genealogy teaches me about history, helps me understand what motivated people in previous generations, and helps me solve mysteries.
No wonder it keeps me interested.
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