Neto:
I've sorta' got into this again lately, mostly because when we were going through our parents' house last summer (cleaning it out to be sold) my older brother put all of the genealogy stuff on "my pile".
So now I'm looking at this stuff, some 'books' put together by somewhat distant relatives of my mom.
Ever notice how, if someone is following their surname, all of the wives, brothers & sisters just get left out? - But boy oh boy would it get complicated to organize that if you attempt to follow them all back.
Yes. Complicated. And, the numbers!
In my informal readings, some describe family “trees” as more like family
webs.
(i added some line spacing below, and underline, to help me read:)
2015 / “So you’re related to Charlemagne? - You and every other living European” …
Adam Rutherford
https://www.theguardian.com/science/com ... rutherford
.. But we are all special, which means none of us are.
If you’re vaguely of European extraction, you are also the fruits of Charlemagne’s prodigious loins.
A fecund ruler, he sired at least 18 children by motley wives and concubines, including Charles the Younger, Pippin the Hunchback, Drogo of Metz, Hruodrud, Ruodhaid, and not forgetting Hugh.
This is merely a numbers game.
You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on.
But this ancestral expansion is not borne back ceaselessly into the past.
If it were, your family tree when Charlemagne was Le Grand Fromage would harbour more than a billion ancestors – more people than were alive then.
What this means is that pedigrees begin to fold in on themselves a few generations back, and become less arboreal, and more web-like.
In 2013, geneticists Peter Ralph and Graham Coop showed that all Europeans are descended from exactly the same people. Basically, everyone alive in the ninth century who left descendants is the ancestor of every living European today, including Charlemagne, Drogo, Pippin and Hugh. Quel dommage. ..
Reading this, i began to think, many more of us here on this forum may share ancestry we’d not thought about. This forum is mostly about Anabaptist history, 1500’s-forward.
One of my interests in this forum was due to questions of my ancestors’ roles in Anabaptist history.
Esp, because of such frequent like beliefs sifting down, but, no family stories or references.
What is this silence? In my family, silence does not represent a vacuum. More likely, things forgotten generously mixed with things hidden.
Neto:
We used to go to a Plett family reunion - all the descendants of one Michael Plett, who was born in the Mennonite colony in Czarist Russia (in what is now eastern Ukraine) in around 1823.
Already when I was in HS, it was a gathering of up to my 5th cousins.
That sort of organization is probably more manageable to put into a book form, but the "out-laws" still all get left out, at least anything beyond their own name & birthdate.
(The Plett family relation is on my Dad's side, but some of my first cousins on my Mom's side are my Dad's 4th cousins. Well, actually half 4th cousins, because the afore-mentioned Michael Plett had a second family after his first wife died, and my Mom's brother married a descendant of the first wife, and we are from the second wife.)
(i think) throughout history, most records were weighted through males, to me, this is logical, scriptures support this, lots of practical and cultural support for this. My family happened to have quite a lot of family history on my mother’s side, little to nothing on my father’s side. my mother urged me to look for my father’s family history, but, until this last year, nothing. i’m sad, because she is not here to share these unexpected findings. she, my father, and his mother would have been “crazy” to learn these different paternal connections. they would have had lots to add, i’m sure! lol
Early DNA was based on male-to-male DNA markers. Because of science.
Neto:
But really, what's the point of all of this?
Most of these lists are no more than lists of names, birth & death dates.
It’s important to keep things in perspective, certainly, scriptures warn against genealogies.
There are different points, interests, values.
Regarding “lists of names.” Yes. For instance, if i’m counting correctly, Chief Henri Micmac is 13 generations back from me. i’m overwhelmed to read so much history available on him. this was Nova Scotia, 1500-1600’s. there’s a beautiful painting of him. he was a converted, sincere Christian.
To access his history, there are mostly “lists of names+dates” to get there.
So, even tho list info seems sparse+disappointing, those lists can be imperative to connecting dots.
Neto:
There were, however, some of my relatives on my Mom's side who did not come to the States.
Some escaped into China during the last months of WWII, others were exiled to Siberia in Stalin's 'cleansing', others fled with the Nazi army & went to Brazil & other countries in South America.
Others stayed in Russia, then the USSR, and some are probably still there.
Those are the stories I would like to hear - how it went for them. (Mostly not very well, unfortunately.
(These were all Mennonites.
We have never gotten far enough back to find anyone who wasn't, except perhaps the child found under a tree in the Mennonite colony in what was then known as The Ukraine.
Neto:
Spiritual conditions during that period were very poor, and some young men fathered children with their parents' Ukrainian servant girls.)
i have a family heartbreak account of a teen girl who worked for a wealthy family in late 1800’s Indiana. she became pregnant by her employers’ son, they wanted to marry, his mother would not stand for it.
the story was, his family sent him to Europe. we have never located any of them.
the pregnancy was complete taboo, the mother+child returned to her family’s farm, they lived a tough, isolated life. the child was loved and raised by family, grew up, married, had a large family. she so wanted to meet her father, to show him what a wonderful family he had. it did not happen in her lifetime.
maybe one day a connection will be made. so far, nothing.