"You are our living link to the past. Tell your grandchildren the story of the struggles waged, at home and abroad. Of sacrifices made for freedom's sake. And tell them your own story as well — because [everybody] has a story to tell."
George H. W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 1990.
For me, it began when I was a preteen. I was born to my parents later in life. They already had four children three of which were teenagers before I was born. I would hear stories they told of Grandfathers, Aunts, and Uncles that I never knew. I would sit at the foot of my Grandmother and listen to stories about her Aunts that were call girls and what Uncles died in bar room fights. I come from a long line of simple living people who worked hard to make a life in the West Virginia and Ohio mountains. I was always enthralled with tales of the turn of the century and I always wanted to know more.
My Fathers side has some Native American in it but no one could remember what kind of Indian just that she was “mean as a snake”. My father and I spent a lot of time while on vacation scouring the public records of our families but we came to a dead end pretty quickly because a lot of the written records either were destroyed or these people lived in places that didn’t register births and marriages.
Fast forward to 2016, my Father is no longer living so now the search for the story of who are as a family where is left to me. Just for fun, I decided to try a two-week free trial on the website Ancestory.com. I put in my Mother and Fathers name and the name of their parents and within two days a world of information was opened to me. I have been able to trace both sides of my family back to the 1300’s. I found out that yes my family settled in the mountains but their parents and Grandparents came to the United States when the US was just the 13 colonies.
They came from places like Cardiff, England, North Ireland and the real surprise some even came from Switzerland. Look at me, do I look like I have any Swiss blood in me?
I haven’t found the lone Indian that I can thank for my dark skin and wiry hair, but I am still looking.
I can now tell my kids that their ancestors helped to settle this new world that came in through New York and New Hampshire but didn’t settle there. They slowly moved west and settled in the Allegany Mountains where they stayed and thrived. My ancestry history contains Ladies and Lords but it also contained hard working farmers and men who took the trains even farther west.
Knowing the kind of people that make up my family tree gives me a sense of pride. The people that contributed to my existence were hard working people who lived a long life and were very active in their churches, whether Quaker, Lutheran, Methodist or Baptist faith played a big part in all their lives.
Knowing your family history doesn’t change who you are but knowing where you came from does give you a sense of belonging to the world that is long past and through you, those people's memories will have a chance not to be left in the history books. You may also find some surprises that make great stories for future generations. I always thought since West Virginia was neither North or South that my family stayed out of the Civil War turns out some went with the Union and some in the Confederacy. The part my children were excited most about was the fact that some of our relatives were a part of the Hatfield and McCoy feud that was so famous. My favorite thing I have learned so far is that my family has three different Tartans. Two were said to be old-fashioned and then there was my favorite the “Modern” (mid 14th-century modern-ish) Tartan.
If you don’t know where your family came from giving the two-week free trial at Ancestory.com a try. Using military records and old Census you never know what interesting facts you may uncover. We owe it to the people who make up our family tree to make sure that their stories are not lost to this generation. Knowing where we come from can give us all a greater sense of belonging.
"Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future. We make discoveries about ourselves.
"Gail Lumet Buckley, writer
