Do You Know Your Roots

Knowing Your Roots

image from familyhistorymadeeasy.blogspot.com

 I know you all have heard the expression “getting back to your roots” or “tracing my roots”, but I wonder how many of us really know our roots. I have done genealogy for about fifteen years and what I learned was that it is more than just the name and dates on a sheet of paper. There is a lot to learn and it includes what is called “oral history” …stories that were passed on down to us. I learned our roots is not just the list of names and places but it is also the things that happened to our ancestors and their medical health.

I love all the stories we get from searching out our family history and I am one for sure that wants to know what they did, what struggles and triumphs they had, about their homes and anything else I can get hold of.

I want to hear things like about my great- great- great  grandmother Betsy who raised four sons by herself after her husband was killed in the Revolutionary War. And how, when they were grown and have moved to Tennessee, she walked from Virginia to Tennessee with a wagon train at the age of 87 to be with her sons. The write-up I found of family said they looked up and saw this small figure walking down the dirt road towards them and then suddenly they realized it was their mother. Or how this ancestor had 12 children but only 7 lived to adulthood. I can’t imagine their loss.

I want to hear about my great-grandfather and how he was one of the first settlers in his county and how he and his sons trained mules for the Jack Daniels Distillery and also trained some for the Calvary. I want to hear about my great-grandmother Millie, whose family came from Germany at a time of unrest and made their way to the new world.  I want to hear about my grandfather, who left home by hopping a train (yes hobo style) and went to Nashville and went on to start the first tire Vulcanizing business in the area. Or about my family member who created the patent for the trolley meter where you put in your coin or another one that invented the rake. I love stuff like that.

All of these things and more are the fabric of my life, but if I only had names and dates, I would not have the full picture and know the impact they made on my life. I would be like the vine that I keep trying to get rid of in my garden that is all root and few flowers. I want the flowers too. That is family history with no heart.

video by ibilly99  (who created this to celebrate his family history)

I love finding new family members and getting more information. One member even sent me a huge envelope of pictures that no one in the family had seen before and in that envelope was a picture of my father’s grandfather…none of us had ever seen it before. When I looked at it…my jaw dropped for my father looks like him.

I believe we are like small pieces in this huge quilt and that was really evident when I found pictures of the greats and great greats and could look at my parents or even my nieces or nephew and see the family resemblance.

The thing I hate is having to pay for information. I do love this link for it is free:

https://www.familysearch.org/

When I do genealogy work, I want to know what kinds of things they did, what they looked like, what was it like when they were alive…and let me tell you history becomes so alive when you are looking at it tied in with  what your ancestors were doing at that time.

Because of my health issues and the fact I have some things wrong that are genetic….the medical history of my ancestors is extremely important to me. Of course, it takes some translating for the names of diseases way back are not the same as what we have today.

For example….do you have Anidrosis?  Not me.   That means you don’t perspire enough. Or do you have Apoplexy (stroke), Ague (fever), Arachnitis (inflammation of the brain)—-I thought this one was something to do with spiders. Haha.  How about Yellow Jack (malaria), Lung Fever (pneumonia) or Consumption (tuberculosis)? And then there is..Air Swelling (gas), Water Brash (heartburn), Osmidrosis (perspiration that smells funny), Barber’s Itch (ringworm in the beard), Costiveness (constipation) and Crusted Tetter (Impetigo).

While I laughed at many of the names, I am sure people 100 years from now will laugh at the names we use today. What is amazing to me is, that while the names are different, the ailments are the same. We are still battling some of the same ailments today. And I also discovered that some of the issues I have family members had way back when, especially the spinal problems. We have a genetic issue with the bones in our spines…why the family has so many back troubles and why I have had surgery on my spine.

Family History is so important and if you are going to do it, make sure and search out the medical history too for it can help you with your own health. And make sure and write down all the stories your family has told through the years. You will be amazed to learn that there is a spark of truth in most of them. One we story was that two brothers came to the US and split up and one went south and one west. Well, it was true…just not the two brothers that my family kept telling. It was a generation earlier.

And now, I think I feel some Ague coming on and maybe some Costiveness too. So, I will talk at ya later.