I can’t adequately express the immersive experience I had as child concerning my heritage. Perhaps it was my own innate curiosity that lead me to be aware, but I grew up very conscious of who my ancestors were, many of their stories, and in general a very strong sense “where I came from”. I was not familiar with the more formal aspects of research or family trees, but with history-loving parents I was exposed to, and interested in, museums, artifacts, and stories for as long as I can remember.
I can’t really remember not understanding my place in history, where I fit in the scheme of my family. Who I was, where I lived, all were blanketed with the sense of my ancestors’ decisions. I was much older when I realized others didn’t have this same sense of identity. They didn’t see their life as the current “playing now” moment in their family tree. Others’ lives finished, with more to come in the future. I always loved listening to my older family members, I sought them out. In listening to them I was learning about myself.
As immersive and pervasive as this sense was in my life, I had never had any practical application of the concept of genealogy until I was in the eighth grade. We did a unit that year, where we had to focus on who we were as students, who our ancestors were, our customs. We had a choice of different projects that we could complete for assignments. One of the choices was a family tree. The idea was not foreign to me, I had seem them scribbled on paper, heard my lineage described so many times. However, this was my first comprehensive project that I was creating myself. This was the moment where I pulled out books, dug into that gold and silver box we kept family history papers in, where I sat down and had to make sense of it all, and learn the basic mechanics of a family tree. I fell into it with my mind and my heart was right behind it. It was an immersive project that my parents, especially my dad, were so enthusiastic about. The assignment parameters were to attempt to trace lineage to the ancestral generation that came to North America. Having many lines that reached to the early colonial era, this was a great undertaking. I learned about many “brick walls” in our family’s stories, met my ancestors, and developed an insatiable thirst to answer more and more questions about who I was and about my family. In the following years: my genealogical research, travel, pursuits, discoveries, and joyful moments of questions answered, all started germinating that weekend. I like to look back at my first attempt at my family tree, because it is a novice ‘s work full of love and it is incredible how much I have learned, how much I have traveled mentally, emotionally, and physically since then. I was introduced to a love that has sustained me and interested me ever since. Thanks Mrs. Ballantyne. Thanks Dad and Mom.
Genealogy Love 