Family Connections

In America, most of us who call ourselves Americans are really immigrants. Whether we're from some where in Europe, Asia, the Middle East or somewhere else in the world our histories are carried to this place of the immigrants. On the East Coast, Ellis Island was a door through which many families first wrote their name on the tree of this growing forest of America's new and growing family.

Many who landed new near Lady Liberty found homes within or just outside the grand city of New York, but many kept moving spreading through this expansive country we now all call home. My own history began in two areas of Europe - Sweden and Ireland, with stops to pick up relatives from Wales and the Netherlands as well of course.

Many of us know our histories, but many of us have always lived with only the knowledge of parents, grandparents and siblings but know little of those who came before us. Five years ago my mother-in-law put a yellowed wedding announcement into my hand and asked me to connect the dots for her.

I began online like many these days, but found only tantalizing bits of information - only really basic family connections but no real information. So, where does that budding genealogist turn for information and connections with those long lost ancestors? It actually began in the bowels of a local library. The smells of the old documents filled the basement space as I cranked through roll after roll of microfiche with newspapers from the period. As I began this impossible search, here I was hopeful since the bride had been born here!

My first hit on information was only a bit, but it gave a place to look for more - Washington State. For heaven sakes! I couldn't just go there, so where to begin was the question? Through the librarian there at the library I made the connection to the genealogical society in the specific area I was looking for information. After sending off a few emails and making some contacts they were going to help on some of the spots where they didn't have the information online locally yet. With that information I also began looking through what the society did have online.

After months of searching and digging through the dusty files and online I began to put together the beginnings of a history that was fascinating. This touch of research has really wet my appetite and I've really only begun the search. When will I be done? Who knows! I'm on my way to discovering connections to the old world, so I'm getting revved up for the next phase of my history treasure hunt!

For me, this is the beginnings of family connections - a connection that began long ago and connects the dots to where beginnings actually happened. What began in the late 70s with the first of the yearnings for discovering those personal histories has continued right up to today through my personal search. I love this hunt for historical pieces of my personal life picture!

Telling History

"Without stories there is nothing. Stories are the world's memory. The past is erased without stories." Chaim Potok

Without a good story, history is not as interesting. Before the written histories there were "story tellers"– those who would tell their stories around camp fires to give people a knowledge of who they were from the mighty warriors to those who were the examples for our cultural morality. They learned the trade in youth through listening and repeating the tales of those who came before. They followed those older tellers of tales around memorizing the narratives of people and events to be totally accurate and thoroughly precise in their accounts - word for word in fact! Having a history right defined their job and who they were.

Any good storyteller was expressive to create an image that explained and often held their listeners spell bound. Most of those around the fire also learned those stories well. The tales were heard over and over again - always with the facts, but continuously told with enthusiasm and an abundance of excitement built into those sagas.

If we think about it there were stories that helped us grew into who we are, and those stories gave us the tools to become the people we needed to be within our society. It was also where faith was learned. The tales were told of heroes and the people we needed to stay away from through our life walks. Can you imagine listening to stories of who you want to be in a well told story?

It was a time where people gathered together to learn who we were and how to live daily. Today, we have books, tapes, and computer games, but somewhere we’ve lost the fun and excitement that comes from sharing stories told around a campfire, or shared by a special grandparent. History has lost that special contact from those who know it by heart.

What stories do you have to share? Every family has a history that needs to be shared. Take time to learn those stories before they disappear. Stories of a grandfather who owned a family circus in the 1800s, or an ancestor who traveled to America, or stories about that great war - these are tales that connect us to the past and to each of our family’s own histories. Take time to listen to the "story tellers" in your family and those in your community, these stories are ours histories and they make each of us who we are.