Making Friends with Genealogy Party tricks
How I make friends and other party tricks
If you love genealogy you love research.
If you love research you should only use your powers for good.
Here’s how I use mine.
Nerds, unite!
One thing about me is that I’m a nerd. A big one. I willingly received degrees in biology and chemistry b/c I liked doing research. I hated balancing chemical equations, but I loved researching to prove a hypothesis. While I no longer work in a lab, I occasionally don a pocket protector and have tape around my blue light-blocking glasses. That’s b/c all of my time is spent poring over online archives and databases of historic records. I really love it. If I have free time, that’s what I’m doing.
I’ll tell everyone I know about some interesting thing I discovered in a family tree. This comes into full effect at parties. Recently, I was at a dinner party and a friend shared their upcoming wedding plans. I asked if the date had any specific significance. Was it the date they met? The date of their first date? Etc. Nope, the bride replied, just a date we picked b/c it seemed convenient. It took all I had to restrain myself from sharing a cool pattern I see in many trees. It took so much restraint that I couldn’t stop myself.
“Many of the trees I work on have repeating dates of significance from generation to generation.” I blurted out before my stop talking muscles could kick in. “I recently worked on a tree where the date the 2nd great grandparents immigrated to America, Sept 8, 1881, was repeated over and over again. It was either the date of birth for someone in the tree, a wedding date, the date on a death certificate, the date an award was received, the date of graduation, etc. Almost every generation after the 2nd great grandparents had a milestone event occur on Sept 8.”
This grabbed the attention of some of the dinner guests, who asked me questions like, “Did the family know the second great-grandparents immigrated on that day?” Nope, I replied. It was either destiny or a complete coincidence.
I know from my nerdy science background that studies have shown that trauma carries forward on specific molecules on our DNA for several generations. In this example, mice are given a mild shock on their foot every time a specific scent (for simplicity, let’s say it’s the smell of cherries) is pumped into their enclosure. Take note, it wasn’t a painful shock, more annoying. Generations later, the children of the shocked mice are inherently sensitive to the smell of cherries. They were never shocked, but there have molecules on their DNA that passed down that trauma.
So, maybe there is something to the dates of important events, or dare I say, joy molecules that are passed down, too! Perhaps we are inherently acting on joy that is built into our DNA! What an exciting thing to think about.
Back to the party
Once I have everyone’s attention with my AMAZING genealogy research skills (If you pictured the host turning the music down off, everyone putting their forks down, all chewing and swallowing coming to an abrupt halt, all eyes on me, eyes wide with curiosity — you’d be picturing things exactly as they happen. Pinky swear.) It isn’t long before someone shares something wild from their own tree. “My Mom said I had a great, great uncle, or something like that, who all the local women in town beat up.” Typically, this information is shared with only loose facts; there may be a single piece of accurate information, if that, but that is all I need to hear! Party trick commence!
I’ll ask a few questions, break out my phone, and work to find the event in great detail.
In this case, the story got a little convoluted over the years. The women didn’t attack her great-great-uncle. Instead, he was in the midst of opening a “gallon store” in town. The women were opposed to the store, so they waited for him to head into town for supplies. While he was gone, they literally tore down his store, leaving nothing but ruins.
One of the best things about finding this information is setting the story straight. One of the next best things to do is find the articles; the family can print and display them. Both make it possible for future generations to know the story and refer to it as often as they’d like. I have also learned so much about historic events from doing this, like when I learned about the explosion of the Alum Chine in 1913. The Alum Chine was a boat carrying dynamite on the Patapsco River in Maryland. It exploded, and a nearby tugboat, captained by the great-grandfather of a party goer, played a big part in the rescue.
This is my party trick, it helps me make friends. Every family tree has stories like this. Over time, they get a little wonky with the details and facts, but they are out there, waiting to be uncovered and brought back to life.
Do you have a wild story from your family tree that you don’t know the details of? What do you know of it? Share in the comments!