Rootless
About a year ago, Olivier Blanchard wrote a post called Social Media 1918. It’s an amazing post (obviously, if it is still on my mind a year later), but upon reading it I became reacquainted with a sad fact. Whereas Olivier can easily trace his lineage back along some of the “stuff” his ancestors carried around, I am not so lucky. Geoff Livingston’s recent (equally amazing) post, called Antisemitism in the United States, again stamped a single fact into my head. Although Geoff’s family history is sad, he knows it and it impacts how he views the world. I don’t really know my family’s story. I don’t know about the triumphs and pain that resulted in well, me.
I wonder if this lack of connection with my roots is in part because most branches of my family haven’t been in the US for very long. On my mom’s side, I have a great-grandfather from Switzerland and a great-great grandmother from Ireland. My dad’s side of the family has only been here a short time. My great-grandparents were all born in Russia.
I am left with tantalizing tidbits that don’t make sense. I know that my grandfather fought in WWII because I have a picture of him in uniform with his parents, but I have no idea what branch he fought in, where he went, or what he did. I know that two of my great-grandparents came from Odessa, Russia, and the other two came from Berditchev. Why did they leave? Did they suffer from pogram-related violence? Did we lose family members due to anti-semitism? Or maybe they just saw the tide was turning.
Why did both sets of my great-grandparents change their names immediately upon arriving here in the US? The Kupcinets became Claymans. Why? The Bendisheets changed their surname to Bendis. Did my great-grandparents know family who were here already who had adopted those names? How do you get “Clayman” from “Kupcinet” anyway?
I do have pictures in some case, but this leads to only more mystery. Take this picture, for example:
The woman on the left is my great-grandmother, Lena Bendis. The woman in the middle is my grandmother. Who is the woman on the right though? I have no idea. One would assume it might be my great-great grandmother, but I don’t know. I find this heart-breaking.
Or consider this picture:
The baby in this picture is my great-grandfather Alfred Fuhrur, who was from Switzerland. I don’t know, off the top of my head, what his parents’ names were. I don’t really know his siblings’ names, either. I don’t know what made them come to the US from Switzerland. I don’t know why we have cousins from that side of the family who spoke French (my grandmother was fluent enough to write letters in French) yet the surname is German. I don’t know why my great-grandfather returned to Switzerland and then came back to Pennsylvania.
I don’t know why my great-great grandmother left Ireland all by herself as a young girl. Did she leave any relatives behind or was she the last remaining member of her family?
There are branches of my family who have been here in the US for a long time, but I still only have tidbits. We allegedly had people on the Mayflower. One of my ancestors apparently knew George Washington. In the Civil War, our Tennessee branch of the family was torn apart, but I don’t know any of the names of the players.
Maybe they were the sons of this woman, whose name was apparently Sophronia Potter:
I have an ancestor with the improbable name of King David Russell. My great-great grandparents were known as Old Pap and Mammy Sally, and I think it was Mammy Sally who had Cherokee blood. How does that root travel through the soil of my past? I have no idea.
I wonder if a lot of Americans have this kind of experience. A recipe here, a photo there, some doodads over there, but nothing solid. No real stories, because everything was left behind, and it was too painful to talk about what had been lost.
Do you know your family’s story? How far can you go back? Do we need to emphasize our ancestry more? Is this a cultural thing?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/papaleo/2543814431/ via Creative Commons
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Excellent post Margie. I can relate.
My grand (and great)-parents were from Eastern and Western Europe. When I was trying to find out more about them, all I could find was when they arrived to the US, and by what method. I did find out that one of my grandparents changed his name upon arriving, since his brother arrived first. I was also perplexed at the difference between the original surname and what we ended up with.
My maternal grandmother did not know her birthdate,and couldn’t remember the name of her town in Russia, as it was destroyed in a Pogrom when she was a young girl (turn of last century). My maternal grandfather is from Austria. That’s it, that’s all I know. I have absolutely no information regarding my paternal grandparents, other than the name change and that they were from Eastern Europe.
When I was stationed in Germany, I tried to get a pass to Russia. I wanted to see if I could locate any information about my maternal grandmother (my mother thought she had an idea of location). Unfortunately, my security clearance was too high, and I was considered a target (I knew absolutely nothing, and it was during the end days of the Cold War). I never had the chance to go.
I think it is crucial that we talk to our grandparents, and even our great-grandparents, if we can. Find out their history, because it is ours. It’s a legacy — good or bad, that dies with them, if not shared. If there are pictures, we need to find out who the people are, in them. For the youngsters growing up, they should grab their phones, take pictures, and record stories. That’s living history…and a legacy that’s too precious to lose.
@Sherree_W Thanks so much for sharing. It’s odd, but it seems almost worse to know those tiny little tidbits and then to hit a brick wall. I don’t know…I guess that’s not true. I’m grateful for the little bits that I know, but getting deeper seems so difficult, even with all of this technology.
For me knowing my history has been part of my life’s journey in understanding of health, disease, outlook on life and even politics. I learned most from my mother and father’s knowledge of family history and some on my own with web search and travels. At least what I have learned is that most of this stuff has gone on within my bloodlines and ancestral psyche for better or worse for over 1000 years….. back to Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
@kevjkirkpatrick It’s always nice to be able to pin your little oddities to those ancient ones, isn’t it? I have high triglycerides which apparently comes from my Cherokee heritage. Thanks a lot, ancestors….:)
I’m the Family History director at my Family Search Center. I help people get organized and most of them quickly trace 4 generations of ancestors using free records archived on FamilySearch.org in combination with my subscription to Ancestry.com.
My love is teaching people how to write their ancestor’s stories because it’s how we learn about traits, habits, good and bad, that bring us closer to them and help make sense of our “craziness”. I just read a study done on genes and “rewiring” -for lack of a better word- our genes and the info they carry from past generations. The research is fascinating and so valuable.
Anyways, if you need help, I can get you started. I’ve hit many brick walls and eventually they crumble if you stay with it long enough.
You’re so right about legacy- leaving one and collecting living relative’s. It’s never to late to start recording their story-elling, especially as hey narrate a picture naming people, places, and events.
Aghh! You can tell I’m passionate about this stuff!
Love this!
Thanks!
@BetsyKCross Thanks Betsy! So lovely to hear passion come through in a comment
One of the most infuriating things I’ve run into is that I can’t access my grandfather’s military records. They inexplicably only include spouses, children, or other “First line” relations. Why grandchildren wouldn’t be included baffles me.