Family History, I am doing it!

When I was in primary (Sunday school for kids) we had a song about doing research on ancestors called "Genealogy, I am doing it..." Latter, it was changed to "Family History, I am doing it" because, ostensibly, the word "genealogy" was too hard for the rising generation...

While my Mom was always very much into our collective heritage of pilgrams and pioneers, doing genealogy, while an interest was very difficult. On the one had I had my father's family which have been Mormons for 8 or 9 generations, and with their focus on genealogy, I've had my ancestors traced back for hundreds of years before I ever started looking into it, so there didn't seem much to do there. On my Mom's side, her father's parents emmigrated from Poland and we haven't been able to go back any farther, mostly because we don't speak Polish OR live in Europe.*

Earlier this summer, I listened to a wonderful seminar about finding your "Living Question" - that idea that energizes you, speaks to you, drives you. It's what you'd do for a vocation, even if you weren't getting paid for it. About the same time I was refered to this talk which calls the same thing your "calling." As I was reflecting on these issues, I had an epiphany. While I was gaining credentials to be an I/O psychologists and enjoyed it well enough, it wasn't my passion. Personality theory first got me into psychology and was my favorite topic to teach. I realized my life question involved exploring who we are as people, or as the Psalmist said "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" I realized that all my varied interests could be summed up in that. I enjoy stories and histories because they're about people (our collective heritage) as well as the uniquely human ability to generate, create, and imagine. My undergraduate work in bioinformatics was driven by an interest in only human genetics, a small aspect of our identity, but a fairly essential one. I left that field, in part, because it was not advanced enough for me to really pursue the aspects that were most appealing to me - genetic genealogy. My current dissertation topic gets me back to my interest in personality and human identity. I'm looking at belief in free-will (humans who answer the question "who/what am I?" with "an agent with a measure of free-will) and its impact on moral behavior (again holding out that morality is central to our identity as humans). My interest in gender and family is in the same vain - what does it mean to us our about us as humans. I could go on and on, because this is my "life question," but for the sake of those readers for whom it's not, I'll forbear.


This post was supposed to be about genealogy** and specifically, how that I've recently become involved, not with genealogy per se - the researching of ancestor's vital information - but actually family history - the collecting of stories of ancestors and family members who have helped contribute to my own identity. One of my most precious possessions in this world is a photocopy of my Mom's journal from her college years as she struggled with soul questions that eventually led her to join the Mormon church.

Recently, I've also been learning a lot more about my Utah ancestors. Despite countless "Pioneer Day" celebrations I've previously experienced, I'm shocked at how much new stuff I'm learning. For example, I had a pair of ancestors who joined the Church in Connecticut in 1844 and sailed around North and South America to get (eventually) to Utah (instead of crossing the plains). My great-great-great-great-grandmother died on that trip and was the only one who died who got to be buried on land, and some land at that! I had other ancestors in the Martin and Willie handcart companies who were famously rescued after being snowed in the Rockies and another ancestor who aided the travelers who were eventually massacred at Mountain Meadows (an event which he throughly condemened at the time). Going to Nauvoo this Summer I found five ancestor family who used to own land there. The most exciting thing I've discovered, however, is that the new Church History Library now will research your ancestor's Patriarchal Blessings and send you a copy for free! Here's how.

They turn them around in less than a month and let you request up to four at at time. The first time I did it, I got 1 blessing out of the four. Then next time 2 of my requests found matches and most recently, I've gotten 3 of four. Continuing the pattern, I expect 5/4 in the request after next ;) Which reminds me, I've got to go make my fourth request!

*My Mom's mother's side is French Canadian and we've had some good success doing genealogy on that line, but that's not what this post is about.
** I just wanted to engage here in a word play about things that I'm interested in and have done some work in:
Genetics
Genealogy
Generativity/Generation
Gender
Genre
Which are all from the same root (as is "kin" through the Germanic sound shift!)