By Robert R. Schwarz
Enlightenment , esteem , love, a stronger spiritual faith,
more empathy, and an exhilarating sense of being linked
somehow to everyone in the world. It's what several people in and around the St.
James Catholic parish in Arlington Heights, Illinois, say they get from charting their Family Trees.
" Exploring my family tree
," says 68-year-old Mrs. Diane Culhane, has taught me the meaning of
faith, hope, and love. It's been a
spiritual journey among other things. " She is one of millions of
Americans who have used the online
Ancestry.com (http://www.Ancestry.com
) to create
more than 60 million family trees that today document over six billion
profiles.
"You might say I have become
addicted to genealogy and family tree research ," says Mrs. Annette
Winter, a 57-year-old pharmacist who sings in her church choir. She's been
working at it for six years , having charted 1, 600 ancestors that include the 4th king of Scotland and a
passenger ( on her father's side ) on the Mayflower. At her computer on the
dinning room table, Annette has constructed family trees for several friends
and a co-employee,, helping them to
re-connect with long lost relatives.
"It has
been very enlightening to research my family roots in Bavaria , Germany ,
because many of the records that I have used have been church records such as baptisms, marriages, and deaths, that come from the on-line digital archives of
the diocese of Passau, Germany, " she says. " I have spent hours deciphering Latin
inscriptions written in old German script in the parish registers in the hopes
of finding missing pieces of information on family members. I have also spent
many hours traipsing around cemeteries looking for family members and always
remembering that I am here because of them. "
 |
| Diane Culhane digging up some family roots |
"I've Enjoyed the Hunt ! "
" I've enjoyed the hunt," says Joyce Hennessy , as she shows me one of 23
large notebooks containing 6,000 names of ancestors she's hunted down through
the years. Joyce is 80 and is a Eucharistic minister at St. Mary's Catholic
church in Buffalo Grove. She and her husband Tom have 6 children, 12
grandchildren, and 5
great-grandchildren. "I love the work, " she says. "It's
kind of cool to see the continuity. " She started her family tree to learn more about her father's family "even though my
folks were married 55 years. " She
believes that her family roots date back
to the Civil War, the War of 1812, and possibly the Revolutionary War. She
would love to become a member of Daughters of the American Revolution but she
needs a "paper trail" to document this. "It's harder to find a paper trail for
one's American side than the European side. "
Joyce has an eye on a DNA
test kit (available at Ancestry.com for $99)
and feels she "might wind up with some Native American blood. "
She chuckles and adds, "That would be really cool. " ( Joyce
also hunted down a "lost" cousin " of this reporter. )
When will her "hunt" end ? "Never, " she replied resolutely .
" Because every time you find something it always leads to more. "
The
Story Tellers
Adapted from Tom Dunn ( http://www.onceuponatime.outlawpoetry.com/2011/01/05/tom-dunn-the- storytellers/ )
In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors: to put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.
Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts, but breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So we do.
In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors we have survived and you would be proud of us? I do not know. How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt there was love there for me? I cannot say.
It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am and why I do the things I do. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish, and how they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.
It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. That we might be who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us.
So I tell the story of my family. It is up to the ones called in the next generation to take their place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.
Adapted from Tom Dunn ( http://www.onceuponatime.outlawpoetry.com/2011/01/05/tom-dunn-the- storytellers/ )
In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors: to put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.
Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts, but breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So we do.
In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors we have survived and you would be proud of us? I do not know. How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt there was love there for me? I cannot say.
It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am and why I do the things I do. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish, and how they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.
It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. That we might be who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us.
So I tell the story of my family. It is up to the ones called in the next generation to take their place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.
Any rude surprises hanging in her family tree ? Joyce smiles as she confesses that one of her ancestor who lived in our Wild
West married a sister of one the
notorious Younger brothers outlaws. "And, of course," she adds
, "you find the usual baby who came a little sooner that the nine months. "
Annette, upon finding her mother's marriage record in a diocese
in Passau, Germany , read that her great-grandmother had been married in
February and had to ask herself: Who
gets married in that part of Germany—it's way up in the hills and with bad
weather ? She than looked at records of children and learned that her
great-grandmother's first baby had actually been born in April. Then , as Joyce did, Annette laughed .
" My grandmother used to say: ' The first one can come any time,
the rest all take nine months. ' " Nevertheless,
Annette says that as a wife and mother, she has been well influenced from learning how her
ancestor "families clung together
and supported one another. "
 |
| A church record and prayer card are very helpful for family tree charting |
Diane learned that you
can't blame one's DNA on the bad stuff
that our ancestors do. Three of
her distant Irish cousins "turned to lives of crime" while three of
their related cousins became either
Chicago policemen or firemen. She
believes it's all right to include facts
like this in a family tree because "that's part of the whole story." This
particular bit of history "shows me
the importance of having a mother who
will tell her children ' you will be
home for dinner or you'll answer to me. ' "
According to research of Rebecca Taylor, a specialist in molecular
biology whose article " Shut Up,
and Be Grateful for Your Life "
appeared in the Dec. 14-27, 2014
edition of the "National Catholic Register " newspaper ( http://www.ncregister.com/ ), The more children know
about their family history, the stronger their "sense of control over
their lives and the higher their self-esteem."
Family Trees Strengthen Their Faith in God
Everyone whom this reporter
interviewed indicated how learning about
their ancestors somehow strengthen
their faith in God. For Diane it was
Thomas, the younger brother of her great-grandmother ,who was killed in 1856 when he accidentally died at his
father's mill. "Her faith was battered but unbroken ,"
she says, " because a few
months later my great-grandmother, though still grieving, gave birth to another
son and named him Thomas. " And
during a "genealogical " trip to Ireland , Diane says she sensed the presence of the Holy Spirit when
she looked up into a narrow , rocky cove inhabited by doves whose eating habits
kept the fields clean for a nearby monastery.
She describes how she learned the virtue
of "hope" from her great- grandfather Edward,
who left County Mayo to begin work in 1880's in Chicago. " His wife and their parents ,
meanwhile, kept the farm going and the children safe. When the last of my great-great-
grandparents died in 1903, Kitty , my great-grandmother, sold most of the family's
possessions and bought boat tickets for herself and her youngest children .
who left County Mayo to begin work in 1880's in Chicago. " His wife and their parents ,
meanwhile, kept the farm going and the children safe. When the last of my great-great-
grandparents died in 1903, Kitty , my great-grandmother, sold most of the family's
possessions and bought boat tickets for herself and her youngest children .
Love, she says, she learned from her grandmother's ( on her mother's side ) faith in her
husband who immigrated to Chicago and needed a job upon arrival. His wife suggested he
apply for a blacksmith opening at the Peoples' Gas Company, which he thought was
ridiculous advice. " But Grandma knew he was smart and hard-working and could figure
out how to make or fix anything. Grandma was right, and Grandpa worked for Peoples' Gas
for almost 40 years and sent his sons to college. "
 |
| Joyce Hennessy : "I felt so connected " |
A long Catholic heritage in
Annette's family tree prompts her to
say, "Catholicism has been
filtered down to me. My children have
grown up seeing my mother and grandmother as very strong Catholics." She
describes what it was like for her ancestors growing up in Bavaria : "It was relatively untouched by Protestantism . To this day,
it is almost 99% Catholic. There were
customs associated with every season of the church year and often with the
feast days of different saints like St. Nicholas, St. Martin, St. Barbara and
St. Sylvester. So, I grew up with
these Bavarian Catholic traditions .
" My paternal grandmother Catherine Strohmeyer
Schmid has been a real inspiration to me, " she continued. "Although
she died many years before I was born and I never knew her, the stories I have
heard of her have been amazing. She raised a family of 16 children with no
modern conveniences , yet she was always at daily Mass. She carefully passed on
her Catholic faith to all her children. Her daughter Irene became Sr. Mary
Concelia, OSF [ order of St. Francis ] who served more than 40 years in and around
the Chicago area. Of all the relatives that I have met through this search
process, Catherine is clearly the person that I wish that I had a chance to
meet and get to know before she died , before I
was born. But I admire her from a distance because she
left home and family and came to this
country and started a new life , which was hard and without any of the domestic
amenities we have today like indoor plumbing
and electricity ".
Annette is most proud of her grandparents who, on her
father's side, sailed to America in 1890 and settled in the northern Wisconsin town of Park Falls. He
mother 's family left Bavaria in the
1920's and settled in Chicago. " They
all worked hard at making a new life here after leaving behind their families
in Bavaria. I am grateful that they did because I was able to grow up in this country
and have what I have."
Enter the Family Tree
Expert at the Public Library
Perhaps no one is more in love with family trees than the 67-year-old author
and retiree who sits at his volunteer's desk every Friday afternoon at the genealogy room of the Arlington Heights Public Library. Stephen Szabados (http://WWW.steveszabados.com/
) has authored several books about family trees ( all available on
Amazon.com ) , including " Find Your Family History: Steps to Get Started"
( which I highly recommend ).
"All my life I had an overpowering desire to find
out where my ancestors came from, to learn more about them," he says. His ancestors led "simple lives" in Poland and
struggled to emigrate to America to build a better life. Their lives have motivated him to "do
better." Stephen, a former project
manager in the retail industry , lives in nearby Palatine with his wife and
attends St. Teresa's Catholic Church there. He has a master' degree in business administration from
Northern Illinois University and has labored on family trees for 15 years.
People, most of them seniors, come to Stephen for help in
selecting one or more of the
8,000 genealogy books and data records near him . Some records date back to the 16th
Century. He, too, believes family tree
stuff is an addiction. " But once
you get into it, you can spend as much time with it as you want, " he
says. " The real challenge is to
capture all the oral history, all that stories that have been passed down and
to obtain this from the people before
they die. I wish I had my grandfather here today to
verify all that I have found. " He advises everyone to add personal
touches, such as finding out if "your immigrant grandfather got on a train
or a boat?...Make your family tree come alive."
 |
| Genealogist Stephen Szabados helping a couple find ancestors at the Arlington Heights Public Library |
Some Family Tree Tips from Stephen Szabados ( abridged )
1.
Know for whom you are doing this.
2.
Focus on the research , not the narrative . Record it.
3.
For your readers, write summaries of family
members .
4.
As your research grows, organize it in a
ring-binder
5.
Put it all together into one large
document with a table of contents .
If you want to start working on your
family tree, Joyce has this advice: " I found it best to take a class at a
library or with an high school adult education course.
There is so much out there that you have to learn where it is. You need
patience." Annette advises: "
First of all, if you have an interest, don't ever hesitate. Then keep plugging
away at it. Sometimes, it takes a little time to find the little nuggets you need. Some funeral prayer cards are gold mines of information."
Are We 'One Body ' ?
As I continued to hear
these four people express their passion for their family trees, I vaguely sensed
another dimension to this passion not yet expressed. I sensed it in Joyce's
comments about feeling "so
connected" as she stood in that Irish cemetery, aware that in that same moment
her fellow Catholics were also going to Mass
in Buffalo Grove—and likely in other countries . And later I sensed it when Diane told me
about one of her four visits to Ireland : One of her cousins , upon meeting her
for the first time, kept hugging her and
exclaiming, " You're the first
one to come back !" The cousin
then pointed to a nearby tree and , with
moistened eyes, said: " When your
grandmother was a little girl, she was the first one to climb that tree. "
 |
| Diane Culhane at the grave of her great-great grandparents in west Galway, Ireland... |
This same sense teased when, shortly before I wrote this
report, a family friend emailed me to say she had located
a "third" cousin of mine in
Poland named Kazik. With the help of
" Google Translate" (http://WWW.translate.google.com/ ) , Kazik and I exchanged several emails with
family photographs and heart-felt words
as if we had known each other since childhood.
 |
| ...and the tree her grandmother "would have climbed ." |
On the website " Family Tree Builder ," (http://WWW.ideas.4brad.com ) , the author , using scholarly
language and mathematics, postulates
that "everybody is your 16th cousin." But , he says, while one may be linked to a true family member as far back as 2,ooo
years, this linkage beyond that can only be expressed , or shown, by mathematic
equations.
Another statistic I came across ( http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2011/ How Many People… ) excites
one's imagination. Carl Haub, senior
visiting scholar at the Population Reference Bureau, presents a cogent argument
as to the number of people who have ever lived on earth: since 2011, he
reports, 107,602, 707, 791 humans have lived or been born since 8,000 B.C.
I talked with Stephen Szabados about the television
program " Finding Your Roots"
( http://www.pbs.org/wnet/finding-your-roots/) .
I had watched the episode where the moderator, Henry Louis
Gate, Jr., a professor at Harvard University ,
documented his own family
tree. Gates, an Afro-American, traced some of his ancestry to a small
community and was surprised to see that
some of his "kinfolk" is Caucasian!
At the end of the episode, he expressed amazement over "how we are all linked to
just about everybody. I continue to be amazed at how connected members of the
human family are. "
 |
| Annette Winter discovered a second cousin who served in the German army in World War II as was killed. |
My interviewees might likely want to expand this analogy
and cite what is widely cited in much of Christian theology, that a Christian
has a role, a function in this one body
to which all true Christian belong, alive and dead—with Jesus Christ as the
head . accepted in Christendom . We
being many are one bread, one body ; for we all partake of the one bread. (
1 Corinthians 10:17 ).
Regardless, Annette, Diane, Joyce, and Stephen will
surely tell you that , whether their family tree is made of spirit or kinship
or both, it can be a delightful blessing for whomever digs for its roots.
THE END
All
comments are welcome.
© 2015
Robert R. Schwarz
S
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