From the Outside

A relative recently asked me for help with our mutual family history research. He's new to the game. I've been working on it since I was in high school. As I looked through notes and obscure entries in old records, I thought a lot about the family dynamics. Genealogy isn't just some dusty old list of family information with marriages and deaths and lists of children. For every family group, there were heartaches and joys and grief and laughter. Too often, from the outside, we forget they were people with triumphs and defeats, just like any others.

Every time I look through the files, I am reminded of my own failings as a parent and I wonder what those long gone mothers and fathers thought about their own children and grandchildren. Did they too wonder what difference they could have made it they'd chosen different actions?

Children grow up and move on and make their own choices. And parents watch from the outside, unable to intervene, unable to share the wisdom they've acquired unless it's sought out. No, they have little choice but to sit back and pray their children won't make the same mistakes they made themselves. Who knows? Perhaps they weren't mistakes, but the only viable choices at the time.

Over the years, I have acquired a reputation for trustworthiness regarding family secrets and therefore, many different folks have shared the 'real' story rather than the public version. Families traditionally keep secrets with the best. Each succeeding generation adds a new layer of secrets until the genealogist is confronted with a bewildering maze of truth and lies. Much of it is never committed to paper (or computer) so descendants go through life puzzling over their ancestors' choices and actions.

Is it better that way? I don't know. I believe how we view our forefathers is directly related to how much truth we know about them. Too often, because we're viewing them from the outside, we look at them through rose-colored glasses, assuming they had no faults, made no mistakes, and lived untroubled lives. When we take that view, we do ourselves a disservice, giving ourselves an impossible standard to live up to.