Am I Really Part Viking?

Have you ever visited a new place and, for some reason, felt like you’d been there before? Maybe you’ve had that feeling of Déjà Vu during an encounter with someone new. Many people will shrug off those feelings as a coincidence and nothing more. Personally, the more research I do into my genealogy and the more I think about times when I have had those feelings or known about things I shouldn’t have known about, especially family, the more convinced I become that those are caused by genetic memory. Somehow, things have become encoded into my DNA.

How can that possibly be? Well, none of us would be here if two people hadn’t come together at some point in the past. The genetics of those individuals helped form us and helped us become who we are. I tend to believe that, at some level, the experiences of those ancestors are somehow, at least partially, passed to each of us. We all have at least some genetic memory of those who came before. Crazy talk? It could be, but allow me to explain it from a personal perspective.

I grew up in a Navy family, and we lived all over the United States. I lived in multiple states and never for more than 2 or 3 years in a row. As a result, as a child, I never spent much time with any of my relatives, so few, if any, family stories and legends were ever shared with me. As a child, I was a voracious reader, especially stories about Vikings and a series of books called “We Were There,” which were historical fiction with kids as the main characters set in early American history. When we lived in Portsmouth, Virginia, and would travel to the Carolinas, I always felt like I belonged there. I felt connected, but until recently, those thoughts and feelings of familiarity gradually faded.

I have always been fascinated by learning about my roots, and in my previous story, “I Might be Royalty! “ I discussed some of what I found through the tools available at Family Search. I traced my family roots back to approximately the year 1150, and while I found that fascinating, I wanted to see if I could find out more about those who came before. I decided to learn about the generations that immigrated to the colonies and their descendants. One of the charts that Family Search produces is called the fan chart, and it shows several generations and breaks down where the individuals were born.

My chart goes back six generations; if I desire, I can go into more detail on each individual listed. What I was intrigued by, though, was where they lived. I wanted to see if there was any anecdotal evidence about why I would be interested in that part of the country or world and if I felt drawn towards it. On my father’s side, my ancestors were born in the United Kingdom, British Colonial America, Norway, Mexico (I’ll explain that one in a second), and the United States. So far, it’s fairly generic stuff.

Starting with the UK, several members of the family line came from the Yorkshire region. I’ve never been there, but I had researched my father’s Norwegian Great-Grandfather because I have always been inexplicitly attracted to the ocean. After all, I joined the Coast Guard and love the sea. I found that the Vikings inhabited Yorkshire, so maybe Joseph Oddy, born in 1782 in Yorkshire, and his wife Margaret Sykes, born in 1794, also in Yorkshire, had Viking genes, and some genes survived.

It turns out that all of my UK ancestors, except for a couple who were from Wales, came from that region of Northern England, Scotland, or Ireland. When they immigrated, they were not the landed gentry and they all moved west in search of a place to make a life and raise their families. Oh, and one of my male ancestors was German, so I thought that might be why I can be a tad rigid, but I don’t know, anyway.

Part of the family, the Gates, moved into Texas with Steven F. Austin’s original 300, and that’s where my Mexican ancestor comes into play. My G-G-Grandfather, Amos Valentine Gates, was born in 1823 in Washington, Province of Texas, Mexico. Yes, everyone born in Texas prior to 1838, when Texas became a republic, was a Mexican citizen. In fact, if they were born before 1845 when Texas became a state, they weren’t Americans; they were Texans. But I digress.

So, going back and considering the 32 sets of people I am descended from on my father’s side and the 32 sets on my mother’s side, I know that biologically, I am comprised of a combination of the DNA of those individuals and those who came before them. My interests, my curiosity, my instinctive knowledge, and my feelings about things have to come from somewhere. Is it genetic memory? I don’t know, and I don’t have a scientific way to prove or disprove it.

I remember on at least one occasion when my father and I were visiting the cemetery in Blanco, Texas, and my father wondered how we would find the grave of one of our ancestors. I said, “Oh, it’s right over there,” and pointed to a location. He looked at me and asked, “How did you know that? We’ve never been here before.”

I looked at him and said, “I don’t know; I thought you took me here before.” He had a puzzled look and said, “Son, I’ve never been here before.” We never spoke about it after that, and I had the feeling whatever it was made him uneasy.

I also remember once when he, my uncle, and I visited the national cemetery at Fort Sam Houston, where my mother is interred. My uncle wanted to visit the grave of someone from his past. I started walking, and my uncle asked my father where I was going. My father said, “Just follow him,” so they did, and for whatever reason, I knew where the grave was. I wonder if my mother guided me; I have no idea. I know that whenever we visit one of the family cemeteries, he always lets me lead the way.

What do you think? Is what we feel and believe ingrained biologically in us?

Does the energy that makes up each of us live on in our children and grandchildren?

I’ll continue my search, and maybe eventually, I’ll find something that makes me think, “Eureka, that’s the answer.”