On legacies

I recently had the pleasure and honor of transcribing my family tree. My father and aunt have done years of research, and have traced the family back to the early 1600s. During the process of transcribing the genealogy chart I realized a number of things, none of which most people would think of, unless tracing their family.

Constructing a genealogy chart is a very misogynistic activity. By the nature of how a family name is passed from generation to generation, one is forced to focus on the men of the family. It seems a relatively recent change that women are choosing to keep their maiden names, or merging them with their married name, to create double-barreled names. Looking over a genealogy chart you travel back through marriages of grandparents, but always traveling up the father’s side of the relationship.

Because my family tree goes back to the 1600s, it includes thirteen generations. If it also included lineages of the women of the family, grandmothers and their families, it would be too complex to easily view, but imagine how much additional information would be included. This brings me to my second realization. Although, this is more of a confirmation. The majority of history is written by, or about, kings, queens and, the elite of society. This is also true of archaeology. Usually it’s grand villas or exquisite graves that are uncovered. Very rarely are ‘regular’ people mentioned or unearthed. Being able to learn about previous generations of your family, through publicly available records, is a fascinating experience.

Genealogy charts are researched via birth, marriage and death certificates, and census data. Traditionally, the occupations of the fathers of the bride and groom are included on marriage certificates. Total numbers of households and their occupation at the time of a census are recorded. This gives you an insight into the types of work people did back through your family history. It tells you, approximately, the social standing ancestors belonged to, from which you can derive the types of lifestyle they had. If you really dig into individuals, you may be lucky enough to find additional records; patents, military service records, criminal records etc. As an example, one of my grandfathers served in Burma during the second world war and was captured, spending some years in a prison camp. A great grandfather was a mason and is associated with a Norman castle.

This leads to my next point; even though you may think your life is ‘average’ and ‘normal’, the smallest decisions you make, can have a lasting impact on your family for generations to come. Choosing to move away from your place of birth in search of better opportunities, could lead to an improved social standing, that ripples down through the generations. You may not directly see those improvements, but they could lead to something monumental in a couple of generations. I wouldn’t advise pondering on this point for too long. The responsibility of a hundred relatives yet to be born can weigh heavy on your shoulders. Of course the opposite is also true. Choosing to stay put, or not having the means to move away from your place of birth, can also have future impacts. Would those impacts be good or bad, there is no possible way to know. It seems folly to speculate, but I’m sure those thoughts have cropped up throughout many a familys’ history. Hellen Keller once said “There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.” This is a powerful statement and one that highlights the pendulous effects of time. Demonstrating how quickly circumstances can change.

Finally, there are a lot of hidden patterns in families. My family name stems from Old English, and likely goes back to pre-Roman times. Interestingly, it first appeared in the same location as I still have a number of living relatives. Looking through my family tree, it’s obvious that the majority of people didn’t move more than 50 miles from where they were born. This is partly due to when they lived. 300 years ago, it was a lot harder to move great distances and commuting had yet to be invented. People usually lived, worked and died in the same village or town. In my opinion, there is a certain poetic romance to that. There is also some repetition of names throughout my family. Again, this is largely due to location. Certain names have a local preference, or an historic or geographic meaning. It was very interesting to find a pair of siblings from the 1770s called William and Joseph, knowing I have nephews who are also called William and Joseph. That brought an unjustifiably large smile to my face.

If you have the opportunity to perform similar research and study your genealogy, I highly recommend it. It helps put your place into a larger frame of reference. You realize how lucky we are to live in times when medical advances help lessen infant mortality, and you come to realize the stresses and strains on modern life were, in some form, similar to those hundreds of years ago. Everyone is trying to make a living and provide for their families in the best way they’re able to. Is that any easier for the average person now than it was 200, 500 or even 1,000 years ago? I’ll leave that debate for the future.