I suppose it’s only natural since we’ve been spending so much time in Ireland that my intermittent obsession with ancestry research would kick back into gear.
It’s big news here that they have recently released the 1926 census records. There are only 2 sets of pre-independence census records available. The other 19th century records were destroyed, some to protect confidentiality, some by fire during the rising, and others pulped during the paper shortages of World War I. Church records, land records, and court records fill in a lot of the gaps.
Ancestry isn’t just about the records, though. My mother is almost 90, the last one of her generation. When I go through old papers and photos with her, it sparks some of our best conversations. I’ve shown her a photo of her second grade class, and she remembers almost all of the names, something I certainly can’t do. We talked about the time she and my dad were stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, just before I was born. Between her memories and my search engine skills, we were able to find out what happened to that cute couple they were friends with.
We’re staying away from the cheek swab DNA tests – too many friends have found out more than they wanted to know. I have found the photo of my grandfathers’ childhood home and the advertisement for my grandmother’s first beauty shop.
My brothers’ children ask me the questions now, apparently I’m the keeper of the history for our generation. At the moment they are most interested in whether we are related to someone famous (you know, McEnroe). I guess I’m more interested to find out if they were interesting. If I run out of facts, maybe what I do know can serve as the bones for an imagined history – I’ll just have to carefully label it as fiction. One thing I’ve found for sure, family histories are riddled whitewash, with rose colored glasses, and with rumor and innuendo remembered as fact.