"Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers. Pretty soon now
you're gonna get older..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3vxEudif8
The David Bowie song above came out in the ’70’s: “Time may change me,/But I can’t trace time.” —Words that take on a completely different meaning when you consider them from different perspectives! My mind goes there today because I have so many things changing in my own life right now...so many, in fact, that it took me this long to put up another post, which I’m finally doing today.
It’s been a while since my last one. Life tends to get in our way. It was always my intention to put up documents as I could find them, photos, and so on, and for relatives to contribute as they made discoveries.
As I mentioned, though, in the blog I do for my father and mother’s sides of my family, serious problems arise when you get into the mid-1800’s:
…People moved around a lot more than we might think they did.
…There were no copy or fax machines, computers, phones…and, more to the point, many of our ancestors weren’t all that great at writing.
...And my favorite: Paper burns.
The last one accounts for a good many dead-ends when people begin to draw out their family trees. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Well, that courthouse burned down in 1880—” or some other year, making it nearly impossible to get certain documents I needed from a specific time.
So let’s start the conversation again, with a report from a Thead cousin in another state. (I won’t name him myself but will let him “own” this if he chooses.) Not too long ago he had a DNA test run, as he—like so many of us in the South—had grown up with a family legend about a Native-American ancestor. Here’s the data on his test:
The David Bowie song above came out in the ’70’s: “Time may change me,/But I can’t trace time.” —Words that take on a completely different meaning when you consider them from different perspectives! My mind goes there today because I have so many things changing in my own life right now...so many, in fact, that it took me this long to put up another post, which I’m finally doing today.
It’s been a while since my last one. Life tends to get in our way. It was always my intention to put up documents as I could find them, photos, and so on, and for relatives to contribute as they made discoveries.
As I mentioned, though, in the blog I do for my father and mother’s sides of my family, serious problems arise when you get into the mid-1800’s:
…People moved around a lot more than we might think they did.
…There were no copy or fax machines, computers, phones…and, more to the point, many of our ancestors weren’t all that great at writing.
...And my favorite: Paper burns.
The last one accounts for a good many dead-ends when people begin to draw out their family trees. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Well, that courthouse burned down in 1880—” or some other year, making it nearly impossible to get certain documents I needed from a specific time.
So let’s start the conversation again, with a report from a Thead cousin in another state. (I won’t name him myself but will let him “own” this if he chooses.) Not too long ago he had a DNA test run, as he—like so many of us in the South—had grown up with a family legend about a Native-American ancestor. Here’s the data on his test:
His results pretty well match those of a couple of other Thead
relatives', all descended either from James or Alexander. (See my previous post
on this.) I gave my own daughter a test kit as part of her Christmas present,
and her data came back pretty similar to these other relatives.
In my last post I asked why people in the 20th century wanted so much to manufacture a Native-American ancestor. Other than the possibilities I posted, I have no other explanation. Anyway, there it is.
I alluded to “changes” at the top of this post, and it seems proper for me to tell about them instead of presenting a “guess-it” moment: I’ll be at a different school in the fall, teaching art, which is scary and exciting at the same time. I have always been an artist and find it interesting that at this time of my life that seems to be the path I’ve been put on.
It comes to my mind sometimes to wonder how many of our ancestors felt the same emotions we do when they left their native countries (Europe, mostly, as I said above), sailed to the United States, then moved around from state to state in many cases, finally settling into one area, perhaps, or maybe continuing to move. They were restless people, searching for…what? Unless we have writings by our predecessors, we’ll never know for sure.
Happy Fourth of July, and my next post will be a digression onto that topic. In the meantime, if you have any information or documents you’d like to share, get in touch with me so we can let everyone have access to them.
Ælfwine
In my last post I asked why people in the 20th century wanted so much to manufacture a Native-American ancestor. Other than the possibilities I posted, I have no other explanation. Anyway, there it is.
I alluded to “changes” at the top of this post, and it seems proper for me to tell about them instead of presenting a “guess-it” moment: I’ll be at a different school in the fall, teaching art, which is scary and exciting at the same time. I have always been an artist and find it interesting that at this time of my life that seems to be the path I’ve been put on.
It comes to my mind sometimes to wonder how many of our ancestors felt the same emotions we do when they left their native countries (Europe, mostly, as I said above), sailed to the United States, then moved around from state to state in many cases, finally settling into one area, perhaps, or maybe continuing to move. They were restless people, searching for…what? Unless we have writings by our predecessors, we’ll never know for sure.
Happy Fourth of July, and my next post will be a digression onto that topic. In the meantime, if you have any information or documents you’d like to share, get in touch with me so we can let everyone have access to them.
Ælfwine
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