What Secrets Did My Grandmothers Keep?
New thoughts about genealogy
The first half of my life was largely a mistake. Abuse and neglect in childhood set me up for relationship and career failure. I was a complete wreck and it is a miracle I made it out to live the life I have now. A happy one.
A tinge of anger grew in my stomach as I looked at my Aunt’s carefully constructed and outrageously detailed family tree on the Ancestry website. There he was. My abusive, half-witted, foolish mistake of a husband, attached to my life in unmistakable and traceable legality.
A similar feeling arises when I see connections to places I lived. The places where I cried the most. Where life hit hard and wouldn’t let up until I ran far away, putting as many miles between as the map would allow. I want to forget, but history remembers.
Several years ago, I became deeply emerged in my own genealogy. Deep down, I wanted to discover the women who came before me. Would their paths through life give me a better understanding of my existence? If I found an old photo, would I peer into their eyes and see my own?
I searched through old documents for weeks, piecing things together, solving little mysteries. I always knew the one and only thing my parents had in common was they both came from shitty childhoods of their own…
