Sitting on my piano is the metronome that used to belong to my grandmother. She was an accomplished pianist, church organist, and piano teacher, and I often think of her whenever I hear someone playing beautiful piano music. Grandmother Myren also had perfect pitch which meant that whenever she heard me miss a note as I was practicing my piano lessons, she would tell me, often from another room, "that should be a B flat, not B natural, Dearie". A quick glance back at my music would always show me she was right.
It has been interesting to see how others in the family seem to have inherited grandmother's musical talents and abilities. My parents saw that I took piano lessons once I had Grandmother's OK on this while my brother played in the band through high school and has a collection of instruments picked up at garage sales which he has taught himself to play.
Among Grandmother's younger descendants, I have a son whose self-taught guitar playing helped him meet his wife. And then, there's the youngest grandchild who displays a gentle touch as she places her fingers on the piano keys, beaming when she hears the notes she plays. It really seems as if some musical abilities have been passed down from Grandmother.
My husband's father talked of being a fifth-generation blacksmith in the Nelson family. Although none of his children followed this trade for a living or a hobby, he has two sons who are mechanical engineers, two engineer grandsons, and a great grandson who looks as if he might be heading in that direction also. The same fabrication and analytical skills of the village blacksmith just find new outlets in our current society.
As we watch our children grow, we may see similar talents from our ancestors appearing. This could be a good time to help today's generation relate in a new way to ancestors with whom they share a common skill or aptitude. What runs in your family?
A is for ANCESTOR. Ancestors are those people with whom we have a direct blood relationship. This includes our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents (GGrandparents), great great grandparents (GGGrandparents) etc. If you do the math, this means that researching back ten generations (about 250 years) will show you have 1024 ancestors! Before you panic, temper this fact with the awareness that very few people are ever able to research all their ancestors this far back. Envision this number and you can see how descriptive the term family tree really is.
D is for DESCENDANT. Descendants are those individuals who have a direct blood relationship with those born after them: children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc. Looking again at ten generations in a family, an individual living back in the late 1700s could have hundreds to thousands of descendants, all depending upon each individual's fertility and longevity. Like me, you may find one relative in the 1800s who had 24 children and others who died without issue (childless) so descendancy charts won't have a standard shape like an ancestor chart does.
R is for RELATIVE. Relatives are our "kin", to use a good old Southern term. Besides our ancestors and descendants, it is also our nieces, great nephews, sisters-in-law, step-brothers, grand uncles, and that fourth cousin twice removed on our father's side. These people won't all show up on a family tree, but they are still a part of our family and may provide more interesting stories to share.
Check out the extensive Genealogy Glossary on Genealogy.com. This way when you read of a great grandmother being referred to as a relict, you'll know it wasn't saying she was really old, just that she was a widow.
Researching your family history is rarely ever a solo effort. It involves other people, different places, and stepping back into history. Here are a few things for which I am thankful as I have been researching this year.
I'm thankful for meeting a third cousin who lives across the country from me. We met online, e-mailed, and shared photos and copies of family letters. Now we each know more about our family.
I'm thankful for Lisa Louise Cooke whose Genealogy Gems Podcast convinced me to start writing this blog. And I really appreciate those of you who have responded favorably to it.
I'm thankful for the fantastic volunteers who transcribed the 1940 census so that it is available for anyone to search online for FREE. Thanks also for those organizations who worked together to help this come about - USGenWeb, FamilySearch.org, FindMyyPast, the National Archives, and others.
I'm thankful for those who saved old letters, photos, and other mementos. This is the stuff of everyday life that helps the past come alive.
I'm thankful for the knowledgeable and helpful people at the Manuscript and Rare Book Library at Emory University in Atlanta. Their web site had information about how to find the place, where to park, etc., and the box of Camp Family letters I planned to study was waiting for me when I checked in. Thanks also for lending me a pencil when I had forgotten mine.
Finally, I've thankful for all I have learned from my family, those with me today, and those whom I "meet" through researching.
Leave it to Martha Stewart to have a variety of ways to display family tree information so attractively. One of my favorite ideas from her web site is a large tree painted on the wall of a child's playroom. "Parents" perch as owls on a branch and family members are birds on the tree. Imagine the fun for a child in seeing more birds added to the tree to celebrate a birth or a marriage in the family.
In the Make a Family Tree portion of her web site, she also has instructions for making photo cards of family members. I especially like the one showing several generations of women in the family.
Both my daughters-in-law had had creative ways to show family pictures to our grandchildren. One used several dollar store photo albums filled with pictures of different family members. An album like this could also hold postcards or other items that can be used to share a family story. The other keeps a large collage photo frame filled with family photos propped on the floor at a crawling and now walking level. These are both simple ways to help the next generation see that they are part of a larger family.
If you are into crafts and home decor, you might visit my Pinterest board Celebrating Families. There are a lot of simple ideas (all developed by some wonderfully creative people) for both genealogy and family tree related craft projects.
The research we do about our family uncovers a lot of facts and stories and sometimes accumulations of letters, photos, and other memorabilia . We can share these things in different ways and also help others strengthen their connections to the family and their places within it.
