Howdy Pilgrim
Secrets can turn out to be very interesting things, and the reasons we hide them even more so.
My family has always been exceedingly proud of being Irish-American. Irish, American, Catholic - in that order - was how we were raised. But despite being steeped in that particular culture, my sibs and I knew it was only part of the story. The other part was a mystery. Dad was Irish and Catholic and his family was where we got our identity. Mom was a whole other critter. Whenever I asked her about heritage or history, she'd shrug and say she was "a Heinz57, a little bit of everything" and then change the subject. When I asked about her maiden name she'd abruptly say "Smith" - with no details ever volunteered.
Kids aren't necessarily stupid, and the sibs and I all knew Mom was hiding something about her background, but we let it slide. That mystery was just a small particle of all the stuff we never talked about. I had the vague idea that Mom's family was German. At some point I heard a rumor that her maiden name was actually David, and I figured Mom must be some part Jewish and got on with my life.
But recently I caught the geneology bug. I started by looking into the part of the family I thought I knew, the Irish half. And my goodness! They are decidedly Irish. There is no arguing that one. Even found a B&B that rents out rooms where my great great great grandmother was born. That was cool. But the traces of family lineage understandably peter-out right around the Potato Famine and I got bored...so I started looking for Mom's family.
It was a bumpy start. I wasn't sure about Mom's maiden name, had no idea what her father's name was or almost anything about Grandma Nina, except her birth date. Took about a week to track down just that basic information. But once I did, it took less than two hours to find at least part of my mother's secret. Heinz57 my ass.
I started to get an inkling that something was up when it was just incredibly easy to find her relatives. Somebody somewhere had already put together great lists of family records and all the birth, marriage and death certificates showing clearly who was who's parent, second wife, third husband, when they moved, and where to, etc. Having struggled through my Dad's family history, I knew enough to recognize that this was odd.
I was happily sorting through old census records, when I came across a name that sounded very old testamenty. The man was apparently my umpteenth grandfather. There were maps to his tombstone and property deeds, and it turned out he had been a scout during the Revolutionary War under General George Washington. I was thrilled! I vaguely remember my mom saying something about having the chance to join the DAR. Turned out, the other half of the family were Tories. I thought, WOW! This could be the secret she was hiding. Dad being none-to-fond of the English in general, Mom wasn't about to go into how her family was Brit to the bone.
But the records kept going.
Now...I'm a lesbian and an atheist and before I was an atheist was a practicing Wiccan for years. So as the family records kept turning up, my old friends started joking about Puritans and Witch-hunts. I got to a birth record from 1626...in Plymouth, for my I-lost-count-of-the-greats grandmother. I turned to a friend with a vast knowledge of history and asked, "When did the Pilgrims get to Massachussetts?" "About 1620, I think"
Yep. Those Pilgrims. Direct line of grandparents runs straight through Plymouth-frikkin-Rock. And there was an Uncle\Brother on the Mayflower.
And all those years, married to a proud Irishman, Mom never said a word. I'm pretty sure she knew about the Revolutionary Scout and the Tories. I have to guess if she knew that much, she must have known about the Pilgrims. Explains why she cooked a mean Thanksgiving dinner (I'm kidding).
This halloween, I guess I'm going to get me a funny hat and some buckled shoes...and duck the potatoes my friend will be throwing at me.
Wait, does this mean I owe money to the First Nations? What would the interest on something like that be? Maybe I should stick with the potatoes after all.