Road Trips and Ancestry

On a recent road trip to visit family in Virginia, traveling from St. Louis, Missouri, and heading east on I-64, I decided to research the counties we would be driving through to identify which of our ancestors might have lived in those locations. We had fun reading about our ancestors and the locales. I'm sharing the following because I thought it might give others some inspiration as well -- why not invite your ancestors along on your travels?

In Washington County, Illinois, our 2nd great-grandfather John William Frederick was listed with his parents and siblings in the 1860 census for Richview. John was age 11 at the time and had been born in Pennsylvania. His father Valentine Frederick had emigrated from Germany and was working as a saloonkeeper in Richview.

Perry County, Indiana, was the home of our 5th great-grandfather Henry Rhodes (who had been born in Kentucky, just across the Ohio River), his wife Elizabeth Barnes, and their seven children. Their son Thomas married Monica Alvey before moving to Missouri. Both Henry and Elizabeth died in 1863.

As we drove through Shelby County, Kentucky, we read about our 4th great-grandparents Mary Guthrie and Jacob Bilderback. Mary had been born about 1760 in County Cork, Ireland, immigrating with her parents, and married Jacob about 1786 in Kentucky. They had at least five children and it was their granddaughter Rebecca who, in 1854 in Indiana, married our 2nd great-grandfather Robert Tribble.

It was in Cabell County, West Virginia, that our 4th great-grandparents James Lemay and Nancy Hughart were married. Nancy's great-grandfather had emigrated from Ulster, Ireland (he was Scots-Irish) and one of Lemay's ancestors had emigrated from France early in the 18th Century (Pierre was likely a French Huguenot). In Greenbrier County, West Virginia, family tradition provides a wonderful tale about our 6th great-grandmother Ann Morris Maddy Parsons (our ancestors are from her first marriage to James Maddy). Seems she was a tough and independent woman, and, during one trip across the mountains and the Shenandoah Valley, Ann was accosted by a man intent upon stealing her money. However, she turned the tables on him and sent him over a cliff ... the same one he was going to toss her over after stealing her money. It is also said that, "in later years she went by the name of Granny Parsons. She was a midwife and a practical nurse, and was always perfectly fearless, riding a big black stallion, going on her errands of helpfulness at all hours. People in the scattered settlements of those days, hearing the thunder of flying hoofs in the dark hours of the night would say, 'there goes Granny Parsons to help someone in trouble.'" She is said to have lived to the age of 104.

Then, of course, there's Virginia. Like many Americans, we have a lot of ancestors who arrived first in Virginia before eventually migrating across the continent. For instance, in Augusta County, our 5th great-grandfather Captain Gilbert Christian (of Scots-Irish descent) had three sons who were prominent in the early community and the family received a 1,600 acre grand in 1739. In Albemarle County, we have our 6th great-grandfather John Small who emigrated from Scotland in 1724. Then, in Goochland County, we find our 6th great-grandparents John Salmons and Naomi DePriest, the descendants of early 17th Century immigrants (from England, Ireland, and France).

Our family imagined and talked about what the journeys for our various ancestors might have been like, too; after all, they were venturing into wilderness whereas we had a paved highway. We traveled in two days the distance that would have taken them weeks if not months. Can you imagine?!

Lower-Class

I've spent a significant amount of my time these past three years in researching my family history, which includes studying American history. How could it not? Many books have helped me along the way, some of which I've noted previously, and here's another one that rakes the muck from one's eyes: White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg.

BRILLIANT. RIVETING. DISTURBING.

Now, granted, every author has their own agenda when writing a book, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, because each of us is seated within the context of our own lives and culture. That should go without saying, but it seems to be a missing piece of modern dialogue ... so I say it upfront. Nevertheless, I found Isenberg's White Trash riveting.

Using class as the lens through which to view American history opens up an important perspective regarding the society we live in now. It's easy to say "oh, sure, we all know that the poor have been and are looked down upon" but this book brings the reality home in a more visceral and disturbing way. We need to see and FEEL the shadow side of our own history if we want to continue evolving our society for the betterment of all humans, all life.

Most of us were taught the pretty image of the first colonists in Virginia and Massachusetts, those seeking religious freedom or increased fortune. And, yes, they comprised a portion of the early population, although some statistics reveal them as less than fifty percent of settlers. The rest? They represented "England's opportunity to thin out its prisons and siphon off thousands; here was an outlet for the unwanted, a way to remove vagrants and beggars, to be rid of London's eyesore population." These were children as well as adults. The indentured masses were fodder, most of their offspring filled the same niche.

I'm an American mutt with a solid 350-years of ancestral footprints embedded in the soil of this continent. My roots go deep, the bones of thousands of my ancestors are buried here, their blood spilled across the land as they toiled, migrated, gave birth, fought, and died. Many of those ancestors are the ones that the elites and upper-classes would have referred to as white trash, rubbish, rednecks, hillbillies, and more. As time and settlement expanded, I would guess they were often like the individual who "though coarse and ragged in his dress and manners ... at times described as hospitable and generous, someone who invited weary travelers into his humble cabin. Yet his more favorable cast rarely lasted after the woods were cut down and settled towns and farms appeared. As civilization approached, the backwoodsman was expected to lay down roots, purchase land, and adjust his savage ways to polite society--or move on." Unfortunately, many of these woods-families couldn't afford to buy the few acres they had been living on, barely getting by. I can imagine this is one of the reasons my ancestors came to Missouri when it was opened up to homesteading in the early 19th century -- it was their chance to own land, even if some of it was thick woods on rocky ground suitable only for subsistence farming.

For hundreds of years, if one didn't own land or property, you were inferior. As Isenberg sums it up: "The British colonial imprint was never really erased either. The 'yeoman' was a British class, reflecting the well-established English practice of equating moral worth to cultivation of the soil." How is that reflected in our so-called modern society?

This book provides a wealth of insight about the American class system that has been present from the beginning and still exists, whether we want to see it or not. Surely we can do better.

The Feel of the Forest

Have been reading the 1905 book Spirit of the Mountains by Emma Bell Miles, of Tennessee (many of my ancestors, far more than half, migrated from Appalachian TN, KY, and NC to MO), and found this paragraph particularly resonant as well as lovely:

"We who live so far apart that we rarely see more of one another than the blue smoke of each other's chimneys are never at ease without the feel of the forest on every side--room to breathe, to expand, to develop, as well as to hunt and to wander at will. The nature of the mountaineer demands that he have solitude for the unhampered growth of his personality, wing-room for his eagle heart."

Inside the Trunk

The small, ugly trunk sat squatly defensive in front of me, bound with tattered leather straps and a rusty lock. About the size of my modern carry-on luggage, the splitting wood of the battered chest dared me to brave its dark interior. What was hidden inside? I was the latest in a maternal line of ancestors to receive the gift, though it didn’t look like anyone had peered inside for decades if not a century or more. 

I held an ornate key, in odd contrast to the unprepossessing trunk, in trembling fingers. A coarse braided-hair string straggled from the end of the key. Hesitating, I then heard a voice from the ether of distant time whisper open and read. So I did. 

My name is Damaris. They say my mother killed my sister. They hanged her for the crime of murder. But she didn’t do it. I was there. I was two years old and I saw what happened. But my own life would have been forfeit had I spoken. I knew enough to be silent. The Plymouth colonies in 1648 were not safe for outspoken women, least of all for a girl child. Before I die, though, someone needs to know what happened. Mama said to me our last touch, “Pray remember me.”

History of the Celts ... and what may have been before

I find history fascinating. What I don't find in history is certainty. Unlike many who study history (or anthropology or archeology), I see it quite simply as interpretation. Even written history is often only that which was recorded by the dominant culture and how they perceived what they were observing (since the records of those who were subjugated were often destroyed); this is easily realized when we consider how Europeans misinterpreted so much about Native American culture. If those confusions arose only several hundred years ago, all of it "documented," then it is quite easy to see how confusing history can be going back even further in time.

As I research Celtic history, I find repeatedly that each person is determined to make their interpretation one of fact. During the past years, it seems, there has been a lot of uproar regarding the identification of whether one is genetically "Celtic," but we can no more isolate our genes and DNA than we can our veins and heart. There is even dispute on whether Celtic societies were actually established in Ireland, Wales, Brittany, and Scotland, primarily because of modern linguistics; again, we can only see through a glass darkly on this or any other historical so-called definitive interpretation. I enjoy the research; I appreciate the tremendous effort involved. However, I see the endeavors as portals into what might have been, not what was (as fact), and in this undertaking to find out more about ourselves.

For me, the Celtic legacy remains its culture as a whole, not its parts as isolated components to substantiate whether someone is right or wrong. The whole view, individually interpreted, is what has the potential for helping humanity achieve greater good for every being. In other words, what in this legacy can help us lead better, more balanced lives?

That is the angle I come from, whether in my personal genealogical and family tree research, or in the fictional history of the characters in my novels. In other words, how might Celtic culture have shaped the people of the past? What might I learn from the bits gathered together into various patterns?

Healing

Ten weeks. That is how long it's been since I had my accident, nine weeks since surgery on my arm/wrist. Thankfully, yesterday I received exciting news! My broken bones are healed in both arm and leg (although the leg doctor says because of where the fractures were, he wants me to take at least four weeks getting to full weight-bearing), and I've been given therapy instructions for both. I was grinning ear-to-ear at the doctor's office, and practically vibrating all over with joy.

I haven't been typing much these past couple months because the single-hand process was so frustrating for me it was hardly worth the effort. Now, however, I'm eager to begin getting my left hand back to functionality. And, in a few more weeks, I hope to be able to drive again as my leg ought to be stable enough to do so.

I have been spending gobs of time reading and binge-watching Netflix and Hulu, and, while those are things I sincerely enjoy, I'm tickled to pieces to start returning myself to normal … and getting our household back to normal, as well. Hubby has taken excellent care of me (doing all the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc., while also working a stressful full-time job) but I'm tired of it and I'm sure he is, too.

One new hobby I have to look forward to is playing piano again. I took lessons as a kid, and enjoyed playing off and on once I reached adult-hood even though I never had my own piano (we did consider buying one when we were living in Maine but just never got around to it). A couple weeks ago, though, I was able to obtain the piano I had originally learned on; my younger brother had it for the past decade or so, but since no one in his family bothered to play it much, he graciously sent it to me. This will be wonderful therapy for my hand as well as for my heart. I can hardly wait to begin!

With the setback of the accident, I'm not sure I will be able to complete by Christmas the genealogy book I had been writing. It was supposed to be a gift for my nieces and nephew, but I may have to resort to giving them a sort of preview-book instead. I'm disappointed, although I know they will understand. If I do miss this deadline, maybe I can shoot for a Memorial Day gift? We'll see.

For anyone else working on genealogy, or even simply interested in it, I highly recommend the book American Nations by Colin Woodard. It is a fantastic perspective on the cultural and ethnic colonization of early America, and the migration patterns. Whether or not many of your ancestors have been here since the 17th century (like mine), this book can help you better understand Americans and our political growth. The book has a broad scope and is, of course, shaped from the author's own viewpoint, nevertheless, I was delighted in it from start to finish. It's also an enjoyably fast read; the author doesn't bog down the narrative with too many details (though there are plenty of footnotes if you want to explore anything in greater depth, which I probably will).

When will it end?

I’ve been trying to read This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust but it’s tough. She puts the people front and center, and the text is grippingly realistic as she uses quotes from those soldiers who were there … and died or who never “came back”. I’m reading it because I want to understand the lingering effects all that suffering and blood in the soil has had upon our nation — and pour those emotions and patterns into a manuscript I’m working on. 

So while I’ve been reading, there has been (in the TV series Parenthood) a story-thread about a young soldier coming home from several tours in Afghanistan that has broken my heart. War is war, and as the character in the series tries to find a way to live in the “real world” again, I can’t help but reflect upon the Civil War soldiers who wrote to their loved ones of their pain and suffering, of everyone dying around them, of being far from home and being required to kill other people.

I had gruesome nightmares a few nights ago, I couldn’t seem to get away from them; no matter how often I woke up, they returned as soon as I fell asleep. I can hardly imagine the nightmares endured by soldiers when they are awake and asleep.

In the Civil War, soldiers tried many ways to manage the horrors they experienced, from focusing upon their own dying to religious succor to blocking all emotions and becoming killing machines. Faust says that, “As the intensity of this war and the size of its death tolls mounted in the months and years that followed, vengeance came to play an ever more important role, joining principles of duty and self-defense in legitimating violence.” When will this madness end? When will all humans realize the toll enough to stop the killing, the violence, the warfare? How can we release our fear and need for vengeance? One author said that war is a result of impatience, a result of wanting our own way so badly that we are willing to kill to get it.

I believe one way toward stopping the violence is to hold ourselves to the grief instead of the celebration, to the suffering and loss instead of the “victory.” Not all the time, not to the exclusion of the other joys in life, of course not. But when we think of “war” maybe keeping the losses everyone experiences at the forefront of our thoughts, maybe reflecting upon the suffering instead of becoming impatient with the “other” would be more prohibitive. I lament the sacrifices made by soldiers and their loved ones, even while I honor them — but we have to stop killing.

“Battle was, as a North Carolina soldier ruefully put it, ‘majestic murder.’ The carnage was not a natural disaster but a man-made one, the product of human choice and agency.”

Here is another view on "The Other Side of War" -- the writer's poem is so profound in its simplicity.

Introverts, Misfits, and Community

My Brothers & Me in Missouri:
A Tree Planted When We Were Toddlers

I have been puzzling over the curious concept of community. How has it changed or remained the same in the past five decades? How much of community is fed by our similarities as compared to our differences? More specifically, how does community manifest for deep introverts (like me)? 

A lot of my curiosity has arisen because of an epiphany I had while writing Desert Fire, which was the realization that I had slowly and gradually become part of a community in Maine. And that it’s only upon reflection that I’ve realized how my soul was nourished by that subtle ebb and flow of community. I lost most of those tangible threads when we moved to Arizona, and, after nearly four years, have been unable to feel welcomed into a strong sense of community here.

Is that loss of community why I feel this tug to return to the landscape where I was born? To return to the land where both sides of my family-of-origin have lived for generations?

It feels strange to me to want — or at least be open to, for the first time in my life — to place myself in the midst of a culture that is predominantly the opposite of my own belief system. For me, as a pagan-liberal, to consider the value of living around Christian-conservatives is an enigma swirling in my mind. Will I be welcomed or ostracized? And yet, to continue growing in my understanding of Self and humanity through conscious placement into diversity holds a tantalizing energy. It’s almost like choosing to live in a  foreign country as an observer, an anthropological endeavor, while unable to detach from my emotions. Yet, within the southwestern Missouri Ozarks reside my own genetic and blood-roots, foreign as they may seem.

Big Spring, MO
(courtesy Wikipedia)

It is easier in many ways to settle in a place where everyone, or at least the majority, thinks as we do (Oregon, a state we are also considering moving to) than to be where the mindset is alien (Arizona and Missouri). And yet, if one’s purpose is to grow and share the beauty of diversity, what better way than to live on the edge, at the perimeter? If we live in separation — segregated — the gap becomes wider and the bridge more flimsy due to the distances between us. How do we nourish community within diversity? Precious Diversity in her “coat of many colors that my Mother made for me.” Will I be able to stay focused on my path and also find the community’s core goodness, our commonality?

Will the land support and soothe my fears and nurture our differences? At least in the Ozarks, I would be living in a moderate, lovely landscape (in spite of the occasional tornado) and climate where my husband and I can afford to live comfortably as we age closer to retirement. I want to walk barefoot upon the land and within my own mind — free from aversions to my past. 

My Grandparents' Farm in MO

I yearn to sink down, to ground — even if it is into my own blood-roots that I swore I would never return to. I never felt I fit in — with family or culture or religion — and yet, now, I also feel a kinship arising within me like the ancient sap of an ancestral core. Is it the simple process of aging that does this? Or is it self-realization? An acknowledgment and acceptance that I am spirit; genes, and uniquely woven — all of these? What are the gifts held within genetic memory and the people who are my family-of-origin?

Is it possible for the moist verdant rolling hills, the vibrant vegetation, and the multi-generational roots of family and community to be nourishing enough to offset the strain of living a culturally misfit presence?

During the past couple of months, as the potential for moving has become clearer, I’m reading a variety of related sources that touch upon family, community, diversity, and how we view our historic past. The books written by psychologist Mary Pipher have been extremely helpful; they have provided me with insights I’d not previously considered regarding our American views of family and community. (I wholeheartedly recommend her books, I’ve read all of them, though I find myself disagreeing with some of her more rigid views.)

For me, this research also entails trying to understand why some of us attach so strongly to the past and its symbols, while others can detach, even when we are born into the same families.* Most southern Missouri people were allied with the Confederacy, and yet, somehow, from a quite young age, I personally felt more like a Yankee. Because of this desire to comprehend a different perspective, I’m also reading books like Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct by Michael McCullough, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, and The War that Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters published this year by James McPherson. 

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* I am an American hybrid, an example of the genetic melting pot; my ancestors are mostly 17^th century immigrants from Ireland, Scotland and England, as well as from the Netherlands and Germany, blended with a couple of Native Americans. Is it possible that my different views (from my family) are also a product of genetic memory? In Beyond Revenge, the author points out that most of the American South was originally settled by “livestock herding” immigrants from Ireland, Scotland and Wales; these traditional cultures held a strong “honor mentality” due to their original way of life (their livelihood — herding animals — were portable and could be stolen away). This imprint has held firm even when they moved into agricultural pursuits. This is in contrast to the settlers of the American North who were a majority of European, England and Germany for example, established farmers in traditions (their livelihoods were predominantly agricultural and, therefore, could not as easily be stolen therefore emerging a different culture and mindset). Is it the German genes being expressed more strongly through me? McCullough’s book is absolutely fascinating, even though I don’t concur with all his findings. Nevertheless, it helped me to think outside the box.

Fading Flowers

photo courtesy Kerry N Barlow,
all rights reserved

I hide myself within my flower, 

That fading from your Vase, 

You, unsuspecting, feel for me — 

Almost a loneliness.

~ Emily Dickinson

When we absent our insights from the people and world around us, what is left is the ghost of a fading flower that was briefly seen. Perhaps I’ve been plucked from my nourishing garden to die more quickly in your vase as an object of curiosity, a thing to glance at even as I fade away and you wonder in a hidden corner of your mind where I went to. This is mere reflection of how we feel but don’t suspect when people die who haven’t left their stories behind except in snippets of someone else’s distorted memory. 

When I do not offer my story, and my body grows frail toward a fast-approaching death (relative to the vast expanse of time), you wonder where this vague uneasiness and loneliness comes from as a part of you remains forever curious about my life, my thoughts and feelings. “What?” you ask. “What was your life inside the walls around your heart?” As my soul pulls away from our relationship and the material world, my fading energy is unrecognized, obscured, fleeting.

Even if we don’t have the whole picture, we can immortalize particular moments. In my novels, there are parts of people I’ve known; I’m less lonely for them and others will see them, too, see glimpses of a life that made a difference … as we all do. However, I imagine how marvelous it would be if every person wrote at least one memoir of a pivotal transition or transformation in their life. This flower would be fresh forever, unfading.

A photograph doesn’t reveal soul or share story; after a generation or two passes, the photos tossed loose in the aging maple chest lined with cedar strips mean nothing. But dig through and pull up from below a sheaf of letters, a journal, a slim volume of preserved memory and the person is fresh, telling a tale of insight, of passage through the past.

Unless and until the reciting of oral history returns, books are best, paper is tried-and-true in its longevity. The books survive hundreds of years, maybe even longer now — they provide an opportunity to speak to an unknown great-great-grandchild or stranger who would be unsuspectingly lonely without having met your legacy. Maybe the paper will fade like the flower, though more slowly, your story rooted in the pages-once-living … like you were. Your body decays in the earth or your ashes are scattered, but your story means someone is less lonely for having known you beyond your death. Your descendants don’t have to access you through an archive or require electricity to read you digitally. All they need to do is open the cover, turn a page, and there you are — speaking to them, showing instead of hiding yourself, revealing the flower of your life in what may be a single petal through which they can, hopefully, hear your voice and know the essence of who you were.

And the world is a little less lonely.

_____________

More programs are being developed every day that preserve personal stories for generations to come. From StoryCorps to hospice programs to personal historians, writers and storytellers are attempting to make more voices heard; a particularly good article is “The Beneficial Effects of Life Story and Legacy Activities” by Pat McNees. 

Side Note: I often use the poems of Emily Dickinson as a portal into reflection and/or writing. Because I’m not trying to understand her meaning when writing it, the poem can become something unique to what is already simmering in my mind (whether conscious or subconscious) — kind of like dreamwork. There’s a lovely, and different, interpretation of this poem at The Prowling Bee.

Toe-Tapping Empowerment

An awesome song I heard for the first time last night. Not a new song or artist, but new to me. :-) Enjoy!