My history is in my ornaments. The penguin we got for each other one year. The lantern was still a working light when my mother was small. Some came though the elderly neighbors I enjoyed visiting when I was little, after they stopped putting up their trees. They've survived so many moves and upheavals, so fragile it's a wonder they've endured.
My in-laws do genealogy. Part of their religion, partly that they are descendants of a family that has lived and intermittently prospered on this continent. My married last name is all over monuments and graves in Boston, for instance, including an early governor. Part of history, so sort of interesting. More particular information than that, and I honestly don't give a ratsass. Especially following the male line, and going so far back, the name passed on, but did the genes? And even if they did, what's the difference? None to me, certainly. I'm not even going to try to check my genetic family, since I don't even consider myself part of that family now. Mutual disownment leaves one a bit cynical about the value of genes as a source of affection or relevance. I would love to do my DNA/mitochondria mapping, but as a sense of my place in the flow of history, not a connection to any individual.
Long ago I worked at the Burton Historical Collection for history and genealogy, and learned to disdain genealogists. I retrieved and shelved materials. As a group, pretty obnoxious and cranky bunch, with occasional decent exceptions. I often wanted to shout at them "THEY ARE ALL DEAD!" If I didn't look up my ancestors then, with that resource available to me, and grandmothers still alive, I'm not about to start now. I don't even know one grandfather's name. My mother's father was an orphan from Ireland, probably with an acquired name, long estranged from Granny, and was "found in a flophouse" days after he died of drink. I don't much feel like there is anything more to know, really. If I don't like the living ones, why would I give a shit about the dead ones?
And D is right there with me. Looking into history through one particular family is a tool, a method, but not personally important. He wants to find a really juicy embarrassing ancestor to add, if his dad pushes too hard. One of his old professors did a lot of research on prostitutes, so could be a good resource, if necessary.
Careful what you wish for, when you demand others in your family share your interests.
4 comments:
Some of your ornaments look like ones I remember from when I was a kid. They're lovely t look at, for sure.
Happy New Year, you three.
:)
My wife is terrific at remembering the story behind all of the ornaments that have stories. The best I can do is remember (at least some of the time) that there is a story associated with a specific ornament.
I've never really been interested in genealogy.
Crow,
They have character, survivors all.
Phil,
I don't remember the specifics on many, just that they have traveled through time to us.
My mum did family history stuff; quite a bit into my dad's family which I never quite understood because she didn't like them at all and largely kept us away from them... she found some long lost cousins of her own in East Anglia which seemed to bring her some pleasure. I quite like the stories which living memory handed down, and the objects associated with them.
In general I'm with you though; we're all descended from someone and what does it matter? The current vogue for and industry into it, with celebs weeping over long-dead folks they never knew I find a bit bleugh. And it sometimes seems - and I think I'd include my mum in this - that the people who look to the dead as a source of connection are the ones who aren't so good at it with the living.
I've got a friend who was adopted, who tells me, and her husband who has a great long English squirarchy family tree going back to god knows where and when, that it's OK for us to be dismissive of it when we're quite secure about where we come from and who we look like etc.
But then they say large numbers of people aren't even the children of the men they assumed to be their fathers anyway...
Love the penguin!
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