genealogy
We received a photograph of all four of my great-grandmothers together [taken at my parents' wedding]. It’s a pretty unique genealogy shot, I think. It’s amazing to me how familiar their faces look, though I have clear memories of only one of them. While DH scanned in the photo for e-archives, I mused over the faces.
“I wonder which one I’ll look like when I get old?”
“Probably the one with her eyes closed.”
“Hm, really?” Do these genes make me look phat?
“Yeah. You always have your eyes closed in pictures.” Dude, now I have a biological explanation! It’s genetic!
When he named the scan, he only ended up including two of the surnames [those of my mother and father] so the filename wasn’t cumbrous. It occurred to me in a new way how much information there is in these four women: not just their four names, and the families they made that I come from, but their four maiden names and the families they came from.
R. maintains a genealogy database for our family, weaving our two lines together. I’d like to say “we” maintain it, but it’s kind of in the same way the other farm animals would like to eat the bread that the Little Red Hen makes after she’s done all the work. [If only genealogy were like making bread. I do that every week.] I’ve collected pictures of living relatives, and been a test user, but beyond that I just look at it and think it’s cool.
He’s received a couple of emails from cousins [of the second, third, once- and twice-removed variety] who have found the database and are eager to get in touch. Yesterday he got this:
Wow! Finding your site was like winning the lottery! [. . .] I have, after a number of years researching my mother’s Scots, Irish & Welsh background, just yesterday started on my Dad’s German research. I expected it to be a very difficult project, but between your site and a Galizien Deutsche site, I’ve made more progress than I ever thought possible.
It’s really awesome to know you’re operating a treasure trove. R. and I mapped out the latest common ancestor, and looked at where the linking family members were born, and wondered about their lives; how they got from the Old world to the New, what they were like, and who they knew.
[...] five generations, all the women in my matriline have gone to college. Me, my mother, her mother, her mother, and my mother’s mother’s mother’s [...]