Family is Forever
Family is something that I took for granted when I was younger. This is pretty standard, think. I do not believe I am sociopath (much) for not truly grasping the concept of mortality as a teenager. Stories are told at Thanksgiving and family reunions of members of the family that have passed. The story usually involved some shenanigans because let’s be real, all the best stories do. I was simply your typical selfish, younger person. To steal a line from my all time favorite musical “Hamilton”, “…If I had more time…”.
When my sweet daddy was alive, I heard him mention more than once a cemetery, Lambert Town, he wanted to visit that had many Lambert descendants. I only half listened because life and death is not something I had experience with at this age. In what seemed like no time at all, I was married. Six years into marriage we are pregnant with twins and my father is diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Life changed in an instant.
After a short illness, my daddy passed surrounded by many that loved him. Fifteen days later, and one emergency C-section later, we have two baby girls. No amount of reading, organizing, or planning can prepare you or your first baby, or in this case babies. The hospital made us bring them home. We tried to explain we had no idea what we were doing. They assured us we would do just fine as they shoved us out the door. I think they may have locked the door behind us. Maybe not..
Suddenly, ALL those people I had heard ALL stories about ALL my life were no longer JUST stories, but people that walked and laughed and loved and lost. What did those mother feel with their first born children? If my children were going to know their grandfather, it was going to be up to me to tell them. This was the beginning of my dive headfirst into genealogy.
Several documents were already online of my dad’s descendants. Someone in my distant family had been working on this for years. I did not know this person…yet. Then the research (stalking) began. A few vague emails to a stranger and a Facebook friend request or two later, the previously unnamed gentleman was located. I felt the need to explain I am not crazy, nor dangerous. I’m not sure he believed me on either account initially. He was quite willing to share his information. I moved forward from there.
I not only wanted my children to know their grandfather, I wanted to know stories behind the long line of people from which I descended and hear the different tales and anecdotes I had heard my entire life. Finding names and connecting dots is the easy part. Trying to piece together a personality and day- to -day life of someone that lived 150-200 years ago is altogether a different tasks.
I will say, I was not prepared to learn that people have not changed much of the centuries. When I look at old pictures, you know the ones where no one smiles, I saw pious, hardworking, no nonsense people. I just assumed everyone got up at 3 am after sleeping a solid 4 hours and immediately started milking and plucking things. When morning chores were done, and breakfast, that consisted of pine sugar and sawdust, was all finished; I assumed they would pray for an hour and then go to sweeping the rocks, hoeing the dirt, or whatever they did. This routine would be repeated everyday, until you die, at the age of 27 or 98. It really was one or the other. Death was either from having had 14 sons all named Erwin in 10 years…or cholera… or a freak squirrel accident.
Some of the people that are old enough to have “old family knowledge” hold on tightly to the ideals that Grammy and Pappy are pious and did pray for 2 hours every morning, never giving a thought to how those 14 sons got here. To know why Grammy was living with Pappy’s brother, you have to locate the living busy body willing to let all those piled up skeletons out of the proverbial closet. Aunt Bessie, after a couple of beers will tell you the sweet picture of Grammy and Pappy on the wall was total bull spit. Truth is Grammy and Pappy didn’t even live together anymore because Pappy had taken up with the town harlot. Also,if further truth be told, Grammy couldn’t be happier. Fourteen kids in 10 years wears on you. Kegel exercises cannot fix that.
Learning about the lives of my early family has been a revelation for me. I appreciate the struggles they went through, the losses they endured, and the unending nerve it took to face everyday. Being able to find the funny in adverse situations, to me, is the key to survival. I have encounter more than one instance in my quest for family knowledge that makes me proud of where and who I came from. I would urge anyone who has the interest, even if it is slight, to consider researching your family. What you find may just surprise you.
Places and sites I have utilized to have DNA testing performed is Familytreedna.com and 23andme.com. Ancestry.com has so much information. Watch out though, those little green leaves do get addicting.
Happy Hunting 🙂
