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Family History

    I have been bitten by the bug. Family History, they say, is the fastest growing hobby in the nation. A warning to those who have been thinking about it: it's very time-consuming. It keeps me from house cleaning, TV (which is not a bad thing), and writing. And you can spend hours with nothing to show for it. Other days, it's very rewarding.

    I attended an all day seminar last week that covered a lot of areas. I didn't get to go to all the classes I wanted, but I heard enough to help. They confirmed some things I found out for myself, put a new perspective on some things, and gave new information. It was hosted by the Latter Day Saints because it's very important to them and their belief systems, I won't indulge right now, and they have family history centers open part-time to help you in your search. There was absolutely no proselytizing all day long. Aside from some of the teachers (a few had degrees in geneaology), I might have been the youngest person there, which is to say a lot of older people have taken up this hobby.

    One of the things a researcher finds is that the history of a family and the history of a county or town may be closely tied. And history in general ties into the search. For example, I've had to re-learn some things like what Hussars were--some Imperial Hussars shot down my forebear's brother along with another man in the streets in Switzerland; the former was shot 4 times, the latter  11 times. I had to look up Hugenots, and found they made a mass exodus from Europe after an edict against them in 1685 in France, which fit in with mine. I was reminded of the cruelty of the French Catholic Church at that time; it never meant anything when I didn't know I had ancestors in France. I found an ancestor who was a serf in Germany. I studied serfs in sixth grade, but little did I know that I descended from one of them. The week after he got a letter freeing him from his lord and master, he and the family were on the boat for America.   

      I found out about the Palinate in Germany and Switzerland and northern France. Again, religion was the culprit. The Calvinists refused to accept the Roman Catholic Church, which had political and military power at that time. Bishops and cardinals were actually appointed to governorships and other positions of power. The followers of John Calvin, the Reformed Church, believed authority came from the Bible and not the leaders of a church. But the Holy Roman Empire at that time was the law of the land. Edict after edict was written against them throughout the late 1500's until the French Revolution. One general gave them a 3 day grace period: they would accept publicly and privately the practices of the church or be slaughtered. Thomas MacCaulay wrote that in the dead of winter when the scenery was white with snow, the roads and streets "blackened" with men, women, and children and their belongings setting out from home in a desperate attempt to find safety. They went throughout Europe to the cities, to rural areas, to small boats on the Rhine to go to Rotterdam to sail to England or America. There was mass immigration into the colonies in the 1600's and 1700's. Since they were craftsmen and farmers primarily, their absence left a hole in the economy of their homeland. Queen Ann of England was sympathetic towards them and sent food to the early arrivals in England. She thought they were excellent candidates to settle in America and stabilize it. Those who stayed in Europe had once been comfortable and successful, but now were thin and sick, and begging on the streets.

    So it was this mass immigration which brought the Dutch, Moravians, Mennonites, Calvinists, Hugenots, and Anabaptists into Pennsylvania. Most were German or Swiss. Some went to Maryland, Virginia, or to the Carolina Colony if they chose to leave Pennsylvania. Years later, on hearing about good farm land, extended family groups and neighbors went on to Tennessee and Missouri, The pieces I had found about my own ancestors and their brothers and cousins and so on began to fit together as I read about the Palinate and the grand emigration from Europe.

    I also rediscovered the suffering that many endured on the ship ride to the colonies. In school we learned that they arrived sick, and hungry, and poor, and that many didn't survive the voyage. Two of mine died shortly after they landed. In those first few years, those who stayed in Pennsylvania rural areas encountered Indians, and hundreds of settlers died. That didn't affect any of mine, but it did make me appreciate a little what those early settlers endured. They left everything behind across an ocean, a lifestyle, cousins, parents or grandparents, belongings, friends, their livelihoods, their memories. They came here with a lot of hope, ambition, and dreams. And fears, no doubt.

    I'm having a harder time filling in the stories in between those arrivals and my grandparents' era. Perhaps people are more likely to journal when they endure hardship. Maybe they felt they didn't have anything to tell future generations. And churches stopped logging events in their parishioners lives. Unfortunately, many women's names are not recorded, or at least not a maiden name. I have a gggggrandfather who had two wives; I don't know the name or dates of the first one, I do have data on the second one, but I can't tell who had which children. And then there's the problem of men's names. The mother's maiden name is sometimes the son's middle name, but the problems come up when a boy is named for his father or uncle or deceased brother! You end up with 12 Michaels, but you can't tell anything about relationships or generations of if you have the correct one.

    Well, it's fun. I love the research. It's like a challenge, a puzzle, and I'm trying to put the pieces together. I knew I didn't have any blue blood. I actually thought I'd run into some criminals or something, but so far, it's clean (whitewashed?). I like learning and the feeling of accomplishment. And I'm still learning how to get the data. My brother and I are going to visit all our older relatives and record their old stories. I'll die before I can get it all together, but at least I can give future generations a glimpse at their roots.