Who Am I? | Genealogy Tales
Who am I? It's a question that I'm sure everyone asks themselves at some point or another. And one that can be answered in many ways. For me one part of who I am is where I come from and who I am related to. One thing that I've been using to think about this is genealogy. I'm not the stereotypical genealogy researcher, but I love it so I want to share some thoughts about that here.
I delved into genealogy in a big way about four years ago when I watched Who Do You Think You Are for the first time. Building my family tree just seemed like a fun adventure that I could do to relax and reflect on my past. Looking back on it now, this activity was also probably related to my interest in having a larger family. My immediate family has always been happy and close-knit, but small. I have few cousins, my grandparents have passed, my dad's family is in Texas. All things that have kept me from having the big, crazy family that you see in popular culture and you hear about from your friends, and I have always envied. So I think this family tree business is my search for them.
And there's also that 'Who am I?' element again. I have so many questions! I am in some ways defined by my immediate family, but who came before them? How am I like them? I know that I'm English, Irish, and Mexican, but can my genetics be traced anymore precisely or is there something there that would surprise me? Those are just a few of the things that I think about when I'm doing this research.
The other thing I think about is history. I have always loved history, so much and my genealogical research truly connects me to all kinds of history. Parts of my mother's family left Ireland during the potato famine and moved to the Boston area and have really built roots here. Other parts lived and work and actually owned an iron foundry in Yorkshire in England. And yet other parts lived in London during the early 1800s. My dad's family is another story all together. His immediate relatives live in South Texas, but I've traced a lot of his relatives to a small region in Northern Mexico where they've lived for centuries. And if I (and the Mexican records I discovered) am right, possibly to Conquistador times. From there back to Spain itself. There is also a possibility that some of them were Jewish and converted to Catholicism during the Inquisition. Isn't that crazy to know that much about your family?
I will never be done with my research into the past. New records are placed on Ancestry.com ALL THE TIME. In fact, some new Mexican Records are just recently showing up in my searches with fun and interesting new details. For example I just found out my three times great grandfather, Luciano Medina was married to my three times great grandmother, Maria de la Garza for some years having at least four children. Some time after Maria's death, Luciano married her sister, Sofia when he was 75. Thank you Mexican records!!
Beyond the research into the past, I'm working on a new phase of this project. Who I Am I Related to Now? I want to meet and talk to all my distant and as it turns out not-too-distant cousins. And one of the reasons I'm writing about all this here is I'm thinking about actually doing that contacting people, staging reunions and somehow filming it all. Turning it into some sort of documentary, not necessarily about me and my family, but about family genealogy and what that means. Is that a good idea? I'm just putting it out into the universe as a real idea in hopes that this will spur me one way or another to see if this is something I really want to take on.
Well that's the end of this somewhat stream-of-consciousness thought train. Now back to my Ancestry.com to add more precious bits of information, while I ponder my next steps.
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