Depth of Identity

Must articulate more thoughts provoked by yet another song. 

Because I went down a Yannick Bisson rabbit hole a few months ago (because of becoming a Murdoch Mysteries fan as a result of a David Suchet/Hercule Poirot rabbit hole a year before that) I have been watching Sue Thomas, F. B. Eye. It's a decent show, even if it does often leave you conscious of the actors having learned their lines. (I'm a sucker for characters, who I start to care about like they are real people, and I like these characters.) This show has a theme song called Who I Am, by Jessica Andrews.

Now, to be honest, I usually skip through the theme song when I watch the show. There's one held note right towards the end that just rumbles my speakers the wrong way. Plus, the theme song often comes as much as five minutes into the opening of the show, and by that time I want to just get on with it.

But lately I've listened to it with more intentionality. I couldn't actually understand the lyrics at first, so I looked up the original, longer version on YouTube, with lyrics. I was struck in kind of a confusing way by this experience, and I've been just waiting for the chance to sit down and untangle my thoughts on this.

First, the song has a strong, driving, triumphant sounding female vocal, which is great. The song is all about personal identity, and the feeling the song gives is of confidence and certainty. It fits the show well, because the lead character is a deaf woman who has overcome a lot of social obstacles and who now works for the FBI. (There was a real Sue Thomas who did just this.)

So I was weirdly struck when I understood the words of the chorus:

I am Rosemary's granddaughter
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done, my Momma's still my biggest fan
Sometimes I'm clueless and I'm clumsy
But I've got friends that love me
And they know just where I stand
It's all a part of me
And that's who I am

So, let me unpack how this strikes me.

First of all, I have to say positive things. We are communal beings, and our identity is absolutely revealed to us in relationship to other people. I don't know who I am without you. And our families are surely our most primal sense of belonging and identity, so there is beauty in this.

A bunch of other things occurred to me before that, though. First, I can't relate. At all. Singing a song of strength and connecting it to my family of origin and how we felt about each other is about as far from my experience as picking cotton in the Deep South or fishing in the Alaskan wild. But I can imagine it. And as I said, I can feel the value in it. 

I'm also a genealogist and I follow genetic genealogy groups, and I hear people who face discoveries, for example, that the father they always knew turns out to not be their biological father. I see how this is absolutely devasting to a lot of people's sense of identity. Or the overwhelming emotions of adoptees who meet bio family for the first time. 

I think of the compassion I've had to learn for myself. I became interested in genealogy at a young age in part, I think, to get below the immediate surface of the addiction and mental health issues of my parents, and their divorce, to see who else were my people. 

But beyond on that, there was something even deeper that troubles me with this song. 

It's such a shallow identity.

If my ultimate identity is just in my family and my friends, or even in my own strength and accomplishments -- all of this has a failing point, sooner or later. To pretend otherwise is just folly. It is true I am made for relationship, but my design is incredibly profound: I am made for relationship with God Himself. I have found that relationship in Jesus Christ, and so my life's bounty is to grow in my identity in Him. He is my strength, my love, my healing, my forgiveness, my joy, my purpose, my rest, my delight. That is really something to sing about. 

I understand that some people may have actually found this depth of relationship with God precisely because of the faith and witness of their parents, and that makes sense to me. If this is the case, the failure with the song is a skipping over of the primary, to focus on beautiful secondary causes He has given into one's life. (In fact, the Sue Thomas character, and the real life Sue Thomas were both Christians and regularly pointed people to Him.) It's a country song. Maybe everyone who listens to country music presumes Jesus. I just don't think presuming Jesus is ever a good idea. 

Identity is such a huge piece in Christian life. It isn't exactly a doctrine. It's really more of a component of what is properly called mystical theology, or lived Christian spirituality. American culture is in a state of crisis over personal identity, and Christians are not helping matters if we are not rooted in identity in Christ and if we don't know how to help others root in Him. I suppose I am keenly aware of this precisely because I'm currently in formation to do that as a spiritual director. 

I could delight in thinking of myself as a daughter of St. Teresa and of St. John of the Cross. Carmelites do call them our Holy Parents. Clearly, obviously, we only love them because they teach us how to love Jesus and be loved by Him. I can actually see myself delighting in singing about being a Carmelite ("and that's who I am!"). I think it is just a crime against humanity, literally, to stop short of God and to place our identity in any created thing, even our most beloved loved ones, themselves.

And, here's the song as seen in the show:

William Wallace

I believe I now have a happy and healthy computer, after several bouts of difficulties in the last weeks.

One of the things I did while without a computer was watch the movie Braveheart. Yes, I know, I'm way behind the times, but at least this movie did come out while I lived in Japan, so I had a halfway plausible excuse for knowing almost nothing about it until reading Wild at Heart which I wrote about here.

The movie is notable for its violence, which makes the Lord of the Rings trilogy almost look like a Sunday School picnic. But other than that, I had a bit of a naru hodo moment about a piece of genealogical information in my family tree. My great-great grandfather's given name was William Wallace (Wally) Van Valin. I was only vaguely aware before this that I had come across other men with that first and middle name combination, and figured they were named for someone, but I didn't realize the mythical status of the famous Scot, William Wallace. Wally's great-grandmother was Scottish, and others in his family line were named for her family, so perhaps the family had an affinity for that branch of their heritage. I know I've always liked to milk the tiny drop of Scottish that comes down to me for all it's worth! I think there's something of the Highlander freedom fighter in my psyche.

So, here's one of my all-time favorite tunes to celebrate:

The Discovery of Freedom

I have just finished this book by Rose Wilder Lane that I have mentioned in a few recent posts. I almost can't begin to find the words to talk about what reading this book has stirred up in my heart. One image that comes to mind is how Giussani says sometimes one needs to get a crane to lift an obstacle out of one's path. This book has been a crane lifting an obstacle of murky understanding of the nature of humanity out of my path. I really, really want to hear from other Catholics, especially other followers of CL, who read this book to analyze it together, and really rip it apart. Because if I am just sentimentally drawn to an interesting book, I want to be disabused of false notions of its value.

This book, written in 1943, is historical and political in nature, and yet for me it illuminates theology and a spiritual understanding of what a human being is. It talks consistently of the freedom of men, of humankind (no, she didn't say "humankind" in 1943, she said men), and yet there is no discussion of spiritual freedom in Christ. She is speaking of human freedom as lived on this earth. I see, because of my spiritual perspective, a goldmine of understanding that is left unstated, perhaps even unmeant, under her words. No matter, as far as I'm concerned.

This passage sums up for me a great deal of the book, and also speaks powerfully to my own history:

Human energy works to supply human needs and satisfy human desires, only when, and where, and precisely to the extent that men know they are free (p. 224).

Here is something of her discussion of God:

Abraham said that none of these [vindictive pagan gods, like the Greeks'] exist. He said that God is One Creator-and-Judge.

God is The Right, he said; Rightness creates the universe and judges men's acts. (As water judges a swimmer rightness in swimming, God judges rightness in living.) But God does not control any man, Abraham said: a man controls himself, he is free to do good or evil in the sight of God (p. 74).

This is clearly omitting any realization of God as Love, or God as Redeemer. The plan of salvation as revealed in Jesus Christ is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the book. Rather, the effort is to delineate the nature of the true God vis a vis pagan gods who are thought to magically control people's lives, or hold them to some prescribed service or role in life.

This longer passage is from the opening pages:

The control of human energy is individual control. An individual's desire to achieve some aim is the stimulus that generates human energy. The individual controls that energy.

He always controls it in accordance with her personal view of the desirable, the good.

In other words: Every person acts on a basis of his religious faith....

Consciousness itself is an act of faith. No one can prove that he exists. No evidence of the senses, and no effort of logic, can demonstrate the existence of the element that everyone means when he says "I." I simply know that I exist.

In the same way, by faith, everyone knows that a standard of values exists. You can not know that you are cold, without having a standard of temperature. You can not like or dislike, or want or not want, anything, without having a standard of good. You can not generate energy to act, without desiring something that (to you) is good. You can not think, without faith that you exist and faith that a standard of value, a God, exists in the universe.

Of course millions do not believe... But it is impossible not to believe in God. The human mind will not work without a standard of value.

Anyone who imagines that he has no religious basis of thought and action is merely using another name for his god (xiii-xiv).

I go to the trouble of quoting these passages in order to point out that, even though she clearly is not starting her discourse from a fullness of revelation, neither is she contradicting revelation.

But perhaps the real value of this book for me, which apparently was written during a time when Lane was in the process of solidifying her Libertarian political beliefs, is this emphasis on freedom being that for which human beings were created, and that which calls them forth to act with the full human potential. When writing about the experiment of American government, barely 150 years old at the time, she does not gloss over the difficulties. She knows humans are not able to create a utopia. And yet, she sees the undebatable good that comes from human energies being freed to act, through a weak government and citizens' knowledge of their freedom. She also, writing in the midst of World War II, points out that those who try to crush human freedoms will do so using the very inventions produced by free men.

It is this realistic view of humanity that has really shaken me awake. In my younger days, I embraced (or was embraced by!) a severe passivity and sense of powerlessness. I have gradually experienced freedom as I have walked with Christ, which of necessity entails living in reality. I learned, for example, that when I needed a job, Jesus was not going to go fill out applications for me. I have also discovered, for example in marrying, that as I vow my life to Christ, I actually become freer. So for me, my knowledge of freedom absolutely is rooted in my experience of Christ. Lane speaks movingly in one passage of the religious faith of the American pioneers. Once in danger of arrest for meeting for worship or reading Scripture, in the frontier they did so without hindrance, but with deep gratitude for this freedom, and even gratitude to fight with each other to believe what they wanted. This resonates with me even as a Catholic, first because 25% of my ancestors were these type of folk, and because in another way it reminds me of the gratitude I have for my own conversion, and the freedom God has given me to love Him in His Church. Most of all, though, even though I know I am one limited person, I have a fuller realization that I am capable of acts, especially when done collectively as an expression of true unity, not coercion, that can alter the course of universe, the course of history, where God meets man. This does a complete, utter, total drop kick to the "stinkin' thinkin'" that has plagued me almost from day one.

I could probably ramble on about different aspects of this book for quite some time, and perhaps I shall. Tomorrow, however, it goes back to its home in the library (in Oklahoma, from whence it had to be special ordered for me!)

Ancestral Names

This afternoon I am relaxing by digging through my tangled web of deceased ancestors. It is fitting for the feast of All Souls, no? I have just discovered that two of my more newly discovered lines, the Sheldons and the Harmons, seem to have intermarried throughout several generations not only to each other but into other ancestral lines of mine like the Resseguies and the Footes.

It is very interesting to see some of the given names in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the later days, you find names like Wealthy, and there are lots of Tryphenas and Tryphosas. But in the earlier days you find names like Thankful, Silence and Mindwell.

Genealogy gives an interesting glimpse into a completely different world which was once right here.

I'm Not Italian, But I'm Still a Decent Human Being!

Really!

Ok, I will admit that since becoming a part of CL I have come to have a dangerous case of "Italian envy." I have to remind myself that "holy" and "Italian" are not necessarily synonymous. Have pity on me, after all -- with the exception of some French Huguenots in the 16th and 17th centuries, I have a solid Nordic/Germanic pedigree, with a heavy splash of Celts, going back well into medieval times.

So, this is to, um, celebrate my friends the Italians. If anyone comes across something equally praiseworthy of Germans or Danes, please share!

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Italian kids vs: American kids

American kids: Move out when they're 18 with the full support of their parents.
Italian kids: Move out when they're 28, having saved enough money for a house, and are two weeks away from getting married....unless there's room in the basement for the newlyweds.

American kids: When their Mom visits them, she brings a Bundt cake, and you sip coffee and chat.
Italian kids: When their Mom visits them, she brings 3 days worth of food, begins to tidy up, dust, do the laundry, and rearrange the furniture.

American kids: Their dads always call before they come over to visit them, and it's usually only on special occasions.
Italian kids: Are not at all fazed when their dads show up, unannounced, on a Saturday morning at 8:00, and starts pruning the fruit trees. If there are no fruit trees, he'll plant some.

American kids: Always pay retail, and look in the Yellow Pages when they need to have something done.
Italian kids: Call their dad or uncle, and ask for another dad's or uncle's phone number to get it done...cash deal. Know what I mean??

American kids: Will come over for cake and coffee, and get only cake and coffee. No more.
Italian kids: Will come over for cake and coffee, and get antipasto, wine, a pasta dish, a choice of two meats, salad, bread, a cannoli, fruit, espresso, and a few after dinner drinks.

American kids: Will greet you with 'Hello' or 'Hi'.
Italian kids: Will give you a big hug, a kiss on your cheek, and a pat on your back.

American kids: Call your parents Mr . and Mrs.
Italian kids: Call your parents Mom and Dad.

American kids: Have never seen you cry.
Italian kids: Cry with you.

American kids: Borrow your stuff for a few days and then return it.
Italian kids: Keep your stuff so long, they forget it's yours.

American kids: Will eat at your dinner table and leave.
Italian kids: Will spend hours there, talking, laughing, and just being
together.

American kids: Know few things about you.
Italian kids: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

American kids: Eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on soft mushy white bread.
Italian kids: Eat Genoa Salami and Provolone sandwiches on crusty Italian bread.

American kids: Will leave you behind if that's what the crowd is doing.
Italian kids: Will kick the whole crowds' ass that left you behind.

American kids: Are for a while.
Italian kids: Are for life.

American kids: Enjoy Rod Stewart, and Steve Tyrell.
Italian kids: Worship Tony Bennett, and Sinatra.

American kids: Think that being Italian is cool.
Italian kids: Know that being Italian is cool.

Six Quirks

So, Deacon Scott at his blog

Καθολικός διάκονος

which I am guessing means "Catholic deacon" tagged me for the six quirks meme. Here's how it is supposed to work:

1. Link the person(s) who tagged me
2. Mention the rules on my blog
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of mine
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged

Now, I am very not sure what qualifies a quirk either as such, or particularly as unspectacular. I'll take that stipulation with a grain of salt, then I think we'll be ok.

Quirk one: I have strabismus. What this means in practical terms is that sometimes I see double. It rarely presents a problem to me, except during vision exams. My right eye could fall out of my head and get crushed underfoot and my brain would barely notice. My left eye rules the day. And to the great surprise of one optometrist, I have perfect depth perception nonetheless.

Quirk two: This is my quirk because I figured it out. My parents were related to each other very distantly by marriage. My father's second cousin once removed, Leon, was married to Vera, whose first cousin Katherine was married to my mother's great-uncle, David. Ok, so it is not that my parents are actually related to each other, but there are two bridges, so to speak, that cross the two family lines together.

Quirk three: I love to put salt on food.

Quirk four: I created (I think!) the word "uniquity" as a short form of saying "a specific way in which something is unique." My husband likes the word.

Quirk five: I have not worn polish on my fingernails since I was 16.

Quirk six: My hair is far thicker on the left side of my head. Somehow the right side of my body got short changed (see quirk one). I am right handed, though.

Now, who shall I tag? Oh my... How about

Ladybug Mommy Maria at Living on Adrenaline
Shauna at Fruitful Joy
Rachel at Between Stupid and Clever
Cindy at Puppy Kisses
Beate and Sabine at Fides Spes et Caritas
and
Stacy at Being Refined.

Trumbull Family Reunion, Of Sorts

Over the holiday weekend I had occasion to open my genealogy database and putter around a bit. Puttering is such a wonderfully relaxing and exciting way to explore something, I find. The only down side is that I often fail to make note of where I've stopped previous putterings, perhaps just on the verge of hitting a rich vein of information.

But the wonderful thing about genealogy is that if I've absentmindedly ignored a line for a few years, important new information may have come to light on line in the meantime.

And that is what last weekend's putterings showed to be the case with my Trumbull ancestors.

So here's the story. All of my maternal ancestors and my paternal grandfather's ancestors were 19th century immigrants from Germany and Denmark, respectively. But my paternal grandmother's ancestors have been kicking around on this side of the Great Puddle since the early 1600s. In this line, I have an ancestress named Harriet Trumbull Slater, who died young after giving birth to two sons and a daughter. Her widower George W. Slater remarried and Harriet's daughter, my great-great-grandmother Almeda, grew up knowing only her step-mother.

I knew that Harriet and George married in Jay, Essex County, New York, and I was told several years ago that Harriet's father was likely Levi Trumbull, who had a large family in Jay. I had even made contact with a woman who had a information from a family Bible. It listed names, dates, and spouses for 7 other children, with a mere name, "Harriet Trumbull," for an eighth, indicating (barely) that she actually had existed.

But what a stroke of luck to discover that in the 1840 census, which must have shortly after Harriet died, two young boys of the right ages were enumerated with Harriet's parents. (The 1840 census only lists names for the heads of household.) In the 1850 census it gets better; Edgar Slater is enumerated with Levi. I've never found another mention of the second son, Egbert, so he likely died during that decade. The 1850 census does not yet indicate relationships among those in a household, but the evidence is very suggestive that Levi Trumbull and his wife Sarah were indeed the grandparents of Edgar and Egbert Slater.

Just as an aside in this rambly post, I had always thought it a bit odd that George W. Slater remarried so quickly. But, considering the culture of the time and that he had a very young daughter to care for, I imagine he felt himself in immediate need of a mother for Almeda, who was born in October of 1836. Harriet died sometime thereafter. George's second wife Jeanette died in September of 1840. George married his third wife a mere seven weeks later. Their first daughter was named Harriet Jeanette. It is fascinating to think about the drama experienced in these lives. And then of course I wonder how it was the two boys ended up back in New York with Grandpa when they had all previously lived in Vermont after the boys were born.

So, I'll cut to the chase here and say that I did some hunting, some census searching, some digging out of old notes and some plain old googling and came up with decent verification to lead me to several brand "new" ancestral lines to research: Trumbull, Harmon, Sheldon, Austin, and Skinner, plus at least six or more others that I haven't verified yet. This makes the English strand of my ancestry all the firmer, although the Trumbull line casts yet another wafting of Scottishness over me. I don't mind digging back 500 years to find a touch more Scottish.

But rock solid proof remains elusive. I know when and where my great-great grandmother Almeda was born, but I don't know when Harriet died and I don't know when George married Jeanette. I have a Slater genealogy which contains information which seems to have been submitted by George himself (I surmise this because of unique wording misused in the text: it states that he "was located," i.e. lived, in such and such a place, when "located," in the lingo of the Methodist Episcopal church in which George was a circuit preacher, means that he retired from active ministry.) This text states that Egbert, Edgar and Almeda were all children of Harriet. However, Almeda herself in census after census states that her mother was born in Vermont, which both George's second and third wives were, but Harriet was born in New York. Even Edgar, George's firstborn, states that his mother was born in Vermont! (From this and other research I've done, it seems that 19th century parents did not often speak to their children of the dead. I wonder if it would be different with Catholic families in the same time period?) So, finding burial information for Harriet and/or marriage information for George and Jeanette would make all of this much tidier.

Here's a little visual aid:


The older woman on the right is Almeda (1836-1917) posing with three generations of her descendants: daughter Emma (1855-1938) (my great-grandfather's sister), granddaughter Ivah (1878-1970), and great-granddaughter Jessie (1901-1990).

Learning, Blogs, and Control

You know, I really love the internet. It is like living inside a giant library. I really do love learning, too.

Ok, before I start sounding like a complete nerd, let me share my latest blog finds.

Changing Demography and Your Future by Kenneth W. Gronbach analyzes generational trends as they affect business, economics and politics. I think I love it because the man has written a book with the word "census" in the title. Genealogy, censuses and demographics all seem to fit together in a nice little interest bundle for me.

Another very interesting find is Servias Ministries Blog. This is a non-denominational Christian blog with an unusual blend of themes: theology, economics, and medicine -- particularly electro-dermal screening, a diagnostic tool that is of interest to me as our ND uses it.

I've been wanting to write a blog post about one sentence I recently read on the above site. You can find it in the right hand "interesting quote" column: "Love seeks to serve mankind, not control others by usurping requirement of the Cross." I keep pondering this, wondering to what exact extent is this true. I think of Peter immediately, and his desire to rebuke Jesus from going to the cross. Certainly he was trying to control Jesus, who would have none of it. If we can say that is true, then why is it part of "polite society" to act like we want to keep each other from the slightest dab of suffering? Aha! Of course! Because if we serve others in their suffering, the suffering touches us, too. If we want to keep the cross far, far away, the loved one doesn't have to suffer, and I don't have to go through anguish all on account of someone else, either.

Let me step into this pair of shoes for myself. When I try to control someone else, it truly is myself for whom I am seeking an easier time. I think it is true. I see it clearly when I think of my children wrangling over something. I want to control the situation because it is agitating to me to hear them fight. But sometimes, if I just take a deep breath, in ten seconds beyond what I can bear they have the situation peaceably worked out. That tiny cross extends my patience and they learn to work together and solve problems.

So, what I learn is that I want to avoid just wishing people an easy, problem-free existence (hint: it ain't gonna be so anyway) and instead ask what I can do to be of assistance in the midst of the real problems they do have. Or better yet, see and do without needing to be asked, when possible.

And here I thought this was just going to be a "fun new links" post. It's not often I literally get a "naru hodo" moment while writing!

Home for the Holidays

Today I received a visit from a long-lost relative. His name was Frost Thorn Claghorn (try saying that out loud a few times; a lovely experience...) and he was born in 1880. The visit came via a photo postcard that he sent to his brother 93 years ago, which is now in my ownership, thanks to a woman named Marge who makes it her business to reunite photos with relatives. Frost's mother, Lillie E. Howland Claghorn, was the daughter of Sarah McCord Howland, who was in turn the daughter of Betsey Ann Van Valin McCord,who is the sister of my great-great-great-grandfather, Oliver Van Valin. Running that through the relationship calculator, that makes Frost my third cousin twice removed.

He isn't exactly my next-of-kin, but he is a member of the mystery family that I have been trying to ferret out of census records for the last few years. There is something about connecting a face to a name that make the genealogy pursuit take on a whole new realistic, personal dimension. I can imagine the brick Chicago home which served as backdrop for this picture still standing. I can look at the postmark and know that he had 32 years -- roughly half his years -- left to his life. Did he have any inkling that within five years he and his wife would divorce, and she would marry another man? (And did she have any inkling that the other man would be dead a year later?) And I wonder why, in the 25 words he penned to his brother, did he comment that his weight was 202 pounds? Were they in some sort of body building (or weight loss) competition?

My thanks to Marge and all those who rescue photos from antique shops. A word to the wise: even if you think there is no reason for it, please be sure to label all family photos with names and other identifying information! You never know who may be looking at them long after you leave them behind.

If It's Worth Doing at All, It's Worth Doing Badly

Scott Hahn used to say that a lot. Isn't it actually a Chesteron quote?

I have lots of thoughts and very little energy to meditate on them with my fingers to the extent I'd like. So, I'm going to just going to aim low this evening.

Here are some random thoughts of late:

My friend Suzanne at Come to See (not to mention physically residing down the street from me!) posted this awhile back which touched on the words in the Our Father, at least in one translation, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors". This has really revolutionized the way I think about the Our Father. I say "think about" rather than pray, because I really haven't taken the time to sink down into the words so that when I am praying with others the standard "trespass" phrase, I'm actually thinking of this. If that makes any sense. But the idea of our "debt" to God encompasses everything He has given us which we could never deserve or repay. And we are to forgive others their debt to us, so that we don't consider anyone, or life itself, "owing" us anything. This speaks to me. I'm not good at recounting individual sins for many reasons, none of which have anything to do with not having any. But I can feel "debt" naturally. My heart knows what that is.

Ok, next. I've been working on a post for ages now on foreignness and communication, and today in sharing my grand revelation with a friend at School of Community, he says "oh yes, that's the analogy I started using years ago" to describe his experience as well. So reassuring when someone knows *exactly* what you are talking about.

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Andrew, who is, of course, the patron of Scotland. Even though I have to go back to my 6th great-grandfather, Thomas McNeal (or beyond: he was probably born in New York), and my 9th great-grandfather William Prindle to get to my Scottish roots, I am going to celebrate my Scottish ancestry tomorrow. I love bagpipe music, so I am going to claim all the Scottishness I can and rejoice! (I like polka music too, to honor the 50% of my heritage which is German, but it doesn't quite make my soul sing like "Scotland the Brave" does.)

When I dug out that tape with "Daughter" on it, I also dug out a variety of music I once spent a lot of time listening to. It was so fun to listen again to some of the music that was the soundtrack for my journey into the Church some 15+ years ago. John Michael Talbot was prominent. A woman who lived upstairs from me in my ancient apartment building alternated between him and Billy Idol. I often woke up on Saturday mornings (well, noons lots of times!) to the sound of JMT wafting through my closet. It was wonderful. Other favorites were Rich Mullins, the beauty of whose songs can make your heart ache, and Charlie Peacock: funky, and extremely human. These still appeal to me a lot, however I am left with cassettes which sat in my car during one too many sub-zero winters.

Ok, still really needing sleep, although I do have this need to write as well....

You Think You Know Your Family, and Then....

It was confirmed to me today that I have one line of my genealogy all messed up. It was a line that I "gathered" when I was rather new to genealogy, and thought finding what someone else had pieced together and posted on the Internet was proof of lineage. It was confusing even back then, and there had always been some red flags.

But keeping that line supposedly meant I was descended from Rev. John Robinson, the pastor of the congregation that left England, moved to Leyden, Holland, and later came to the New World on a boat called the Mayflower. Rev. John sent his congregation ahead of him and died in Holland, but his son Isaac emigrated some years later and was the patriarch of a large Robinson family in New England.

But he's not my ancestor. :-P

So in reality I'm descended from some ordinary, non-famous Robinson line.

Hmm... Maybe I still have a shot at being related to the famous Mrs. Robinson of Simon and Garfunkel fame! Ya think?!

A New Blog!

I decided to start a separate blog for my genealogy undertakings. This is primarily because I wanted to post a diary I had worked hard at transcribing a few years back. It was written by my great-great-great grandmother, Almeda Brown, in 1896.

It's up now. So, please come and visit: http://vanvalingenealogy.wordpress.com/

And If This Were Today?

I came across this while doing some genealogy data entry:

Regarding Hezekiah Brown (d. 1777), husband of my second cousin eight times removed Rachael Prindle:

He was a Loyalist. In Oct., 1775, certain inhabitants presented a memorial in the case of Hezekiah Brown:

"That he had said that the Congress ought to be punished for putting the country to so much cost and charge, for they did no more good than a parcel of squaws; that it was an unnecessary expense, and the Assembly had no right to do it; that our General Assembly was as arbitrary as the Pope of Rome when it cashiered Captain Bronson and Ensign Scovill (who belonged to the Northbury Company which was so disaffected toward the cause of American liberty that the Co. was dissolved and these two men cashiered), and that he would not go one step further for the relief of the people of Boston than he was obliged to go."

Two months later, laws were enacted that any persons defaming Congress or the General Assembly should be deprived of arms and office, and should be punished by fine and imprisonment or disfranchisement. He was tried and deprived of holding any further military office. He left Waterbury not long after and joined the British in New York, where he received a Captain's commission, and died there Aug. 27, 1777.

His wife, the daughter of Lieut. Jonathan Prindle, remained loyal to the cause of the Colonies, and the real estate of her husband, which had been confiscated because of his giving help to the enemy, was restored to her.

From The Prindle Genealogy, compiled by Franklin C. Prindle, 1906, pp. 118-119.

June 20, 1928

While I figure out the meaning of life, the universe and everything, I thought I would share this picture. You might have to click on it to see it well. The couple in their wedding duds are my maternal grandparents. The older couple in the foreground are my grandmother's parents Christian and Marie Blum (I was named for the latter). In the background are my grandfather's parents, John and Lottie Schmidt. The weird thing for me to think about is that Lottie Schmidt was only 9 years older than I am now when this picture was taken.

My grandmother was 25 and my grandfather 24. He died in 1990 and she in 1991.

Pictures of an Ancestral Church

A newly-discovered cousin of mine in Australia emailed me the following pictures. These are photos of the parish church and countryside surrounding Hohen Sprenz, Germany, the ancestral home of my Schmidt line of ancestors. My great-grandfather, John Schmidt, was baptized in this church in 1865, as were many generations of his ancestors. To see Hohen Sprenz on a map, click here.









The Johann Schmidt in this list of war dead is a relative. These are men from the village who died fighting Napolean's army in 1813.




This is the school in Hohen Sprenz.




This is a view of the surrounding countryside.

Thanks, Jerry

My Schultz Genealogy Gets a Boost
Yesterday afternoon, I called a complete stranger in Minnesota whose great-great grandfather was the brother of my great-great-great grandfather.

If you visit some of the major genealogy websites like Rootsweb.com, after you poke around a bit you could find that I am a compulsive genealogical information hound. I leave messages scattered all over the internet in hopes that someone will find one that is pertinent to them also, and contact me with information.

Four years ago, a man named Jerry Truhn did just that. He had been helping a relative of his research her Schultz ancestors, and he found a query I left on on Genweb World Project website about my Schultzes who just happened to come from the same town in what is now Poland. He had done some research in church records, rather accidentally transcribed way more Schultz information than what pertained to the immediate line on which he was working, and as he read my post, he recognized that he had the info I was looking for.

He tantilized me with a few interesting tidbits, like a half-dozen siblings of my great-great grandmother whom I never knew existed, and the names of my great-great-great-great grandparents. Then he promised to flesh out the post with more information, just as soon as he could go through his notes.

A few nights ago, a cousin (first cousin once removed, to be exact) contacted me, remembering about some promised further Schultz information I had talked about. Oh yeah, I thought, I wonder what ever did become of that?

I went back through my old emails. Jerry had had one thing come up, then another, then another. Then, he had been in the hospital. In his last email he confessed he'd been diagnosed with cancer. He said he would get to me as his energy levels allowed.

But I never did hear from him.

So last week I searched around those genealogical websites to see if I could find some recent posts by him with a recent email address.

Instead, I found his obituary. He was only 63.
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/message/rw/localities.northam.usa.states.iowa.counties.story/1081

So, after a little detective work (which truly is something I love about genealogy), I tracked down the relative with whom he was working on these Schultzes, and gave her a call. Tonight I've printed out a 38 page report of all the Schultz descendents I have on file, a copy of all the email correspondence I had from Jerry, two articles I found on the internet about her parents and grandparents, and a letter summarizing it all, and I'll ship it all off to her tomorrow.

What Jerry was not able to fill in for us, hopefully we'll be able to piece together for ourselves.

As I like to say, the one good thing about history is that it doesn't change, it will wait for me to find it.

And I'm much closer to finding a huge chunk of my history than I would ever have been without Jerry's answer to my query.