Roots

As promised, this blog is going to be sporadic at best…so here’s the first post I’ve made in almost 6 weeks.

So I’ve been doing some genealogical research recently. It’s something I’ve tried to do on and off for about 7 years. I started earnestly researching around last Christmas. I’m not sure why…I guess I felt like I needed a new research project after writing my thesis. Thanks to Ancestry.com, I’ve really been able to find a lot of information going back on some branches of the tree all the way to Jamestown in the 1620s. I’m most interested, however, in tracking the Adams part of the tree. Here is where I’ve run into some puzzling dead-ends. I think I’ve been able to track it back to my great-great-great-great grandfather.

I wonder who these people were? What they looked like? Census records state what the adults’ professions were: farmers, carpenters (one was a coffin maker), teamsters (as in stagecoach driver). All salt of the earth kinda people. All could read, which is somewhat of a pleasant surprise considering how low literacy rates were in rural areas of Tennessee in the 1800s. Most of the men died young. Even my grandfather died at age 47.

I’ve also uncovered some fairly sad things. My great grandfather registered for the WWI draft one week before my grandfather was born. That’s the last record I have for him. He didn’t die in the war, but what happened? The next record for my grandfather is that he lived with his great-grandparents at the same address where the Germantown Café stands now. His mother lived across town with another fella and later moved to Cincinnati while he stayed in Nashville.

None of this information defines me as a person, of course. But it is a part of who I am, isn’t it? To borrow a lyric from Ben Folds, if my great-great-great-great granddad made someone’s great-great-great-great grandaddy’s slaves, it wasn’t my idea. (Some family history seems to indicate that maybe they were slaveowners, but I seriously doubt it…they were probably too poor.) That said, I’m proud of my heritage. If I have Confederates in the attic, I’ll be proud of their service…misguided as it may have been. Just like I am proud of my ancestors who stepped on a rickety wooden boat and traveled 30-40 days across the Atlantic to face hostile Native Americans, indentured servitude, starvation, and disease to make a better life here. The least I can do is to try to find out who they were and try to preserve that information for my daughter.

What impact am I making? What mark am I making today that may or may not be studied by my great-great-great-great grandkids? Will I just be a number in a census ledger, or will they be amazed at the mundane facts of my everyday life, like I’m amazed at the mundane facts of my ancestors?

What about you?