My broken branch of the family tree
This piece originally appeared at Womanist Musings where Renee has very generously allowed my random musings to appear on her excellent blog
Genealogy is something of a familial obsession with my kin. The never ending quest to push the records as far as they can and fine every slight tiny detail about the lives of people you never met who died years, decades, even centuries before we were born. It's vaguely creepy to be honest.
As you can probably tell, I've never really got it, not to the degree that consumes my family. I don't understand why they're so frustrated that my grandfather's family has only oral records, no paperwork. I can understand lamenting the tragedy of the times when considering how many of my male ancestors died at sea - and how many of my female ancestors ended in work houses or the numbers who were working gruelling physical labour into their 80s - but I don't understand the personal almost grieving that often accompanies each revelation, like it was a personal loved one who suffered such straits. Perhaps it's because, while we're an immensely vast and almost disturbingly close knit family, I've always been an outsider - I don't feel many bonds with my living kin, let alone those long dead.
Of course, I've had issues with genealogy before, specifically about my great uncle Ralph who is listed on the tree as single. Even the big obituary scrap book (yes they keep an obituary scrap book. Because that's not creepy morbid at all, right? Of course you've never seen them compete to see who manages to put the most column inches in the local newspaper whenever one of the family shuffles off their mortal coil. It kind of gives you a new definition of morbid) lists him as brother, uncle, cousin, sorely missed etc. Of course, he lived another man for oooh, 20, 30 years? Oh no official record, no obituary, not record on the tree - but I've heard enough rants about “Henrietta” and how he “stole Ralph's money”. I always wonder who Uncle Henry was (and it causes no small ructions that I insist on calling him uncle) but the family hasn't even remembered his last name.
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Genealogy is something of a familial obsession with my kin. The never ending quest to push the records as far as they can and fine every slight tiny detail about the lives of people you never met who died years, decades, even centuries before we were born. It's vaguely creepy to be honest.
As you can probably tell, I've never really got it, not to the degree that consumes my family. I don't understand why they're so frustrated that my grandfather's family has only oral records, no paperwork. I can understand lamenting the tragedy of the times when considering how many of my male ancestors died at sea - and how many of my female ancestors ended in work houses or the numbers who were working gruelling physical labour into their 80s - but I don't understand the personal almost grieving that often accompanies each revelation, like it was a personal loved one who suffered such straits. Perhaps it's because, while we're an immensely vast and almost disturbingly close knit family, I've always been an outsider - I don't feel many bonds with my living kin, let alone those long dead.
Of course, I've had issues with genealogy before, specifically about my great uncle Ralph who is listed on the tree as single. Even the big obituary scrap book (yes they keep an obituary scrap book. Because that's not creepy morbid at all, right? Of course you've never seen them compete to see who manages to put the most column inches in the local newspaper whenever one of the family shuffles off their mortal coil. It kind of gives you a new definition of morbid) lists him as brother, uncle, cousin, sorely missed etc. Of course, he lived another man for oooh, 20, 30 years? Oh no official record, no obituary, not record on the tree - but I've heard enough rants about “Henrietta” and how he “stole Ralph's money”. I always wonder who Uncle Henry was (and it causes no small ructions that I insist on calling him uncle) but the family hasn't even remembered his last name.
Read More