The roots are planted right here
Trying to trace my family roots has given me a keen sense of place. This place. I come from people that arrived here, two centuries ago. And, on the whole, stayed close by. Yes, some went off to find work; myself included. But, we all came back. To be buried, I guess.
Locally we have a map with a tight circle, used as part of an annual bird count. It also keeps me centred, because most of my ancestors lived within a few minutes travel from this field. They built houses out of wood, set on field stones; pretty hard to find any remains. No cellar holes. Wells that have been backfilled. But I know. The names and the places, and the dates. Myself, my father, my grandfather. My great, and my great-great. And their families. If I say that someone is my cousin, I say that with assurance, and some pride. This is wehere we are from.
Now, with most of the boxes completed on a “family tree”, I still take interest in the process. There are programs on TV, where people of note get their research handed to them in a file folder, with video notes. Hardly as much fun as warming a chair in front of a microfilm reader, but still filled with intrugie. After all, this is for TV.
This afternoon, I followed the chase to trace a missing grandfather. Turned out, he wasn’t really missing, but a choice to live in bigamy meant that he didn’t advertise where he was, and with whom. A double life, with familiies. Out of sight, out of mind, in both cases.
The pr0gram took a sad turn, as children were shown blurry photos of their absent father. Still, anything happier would have sugar-coated life. Some things are less pleasant.
I have found nothing so melodramatic in my own research; explains why my life hasn’t been used as fuel for a docudrama. No thick envelope with a professionally drawn tree. But think of the years of “fun “ I would have missed, if I had been flagged as a person of interest. And we still can do a DNA test (I haven’t, so far). I look outside, and tell the world that I belong somewhere. Right here.
