Showing posts with label genealogy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label genealogy. Show all posts

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Genealogy anybody?

One of my daughters is fervently involved in recreating our family ancestry. I've often wondered about certain members of my family but I always put off researching the subject. Now, though, I can see why she might be concerned.
Lecia is almost forty and starting to have some health issues. She's asked a lot of questions which I always try to answer as completely as possible. She is not willing to take enough for enough and has instituted a search into the past. It turns out, my maternal grandfather was cursed with atrial fibrilation and it was a contributing factor to his death at age sixty-six. That woke me up. You see, I've been troubled with the same heart condition for at least a decade. My father had the malady but it didn't contribute to his death. An accident during abdominal surgery caused the cancer in his bladder to spread rapidly.
So I've got this crazy jazz-like rhythm going on in my heart because of genetics. And all this time, I thought it stemmed from my love of the music I played for years. My answer is much more poetic, don't you think? But no, I got it coming and going; both sides of the family. We also share a blood idiiosyncrasy known as 'factor five'.
That explains in part why at least two of my daughters have had health issues related to that wayward factor. And why I should give a darn about genealogy. Turns out, it's fascinating. When I go online to research members of my family, I usually spend at least an hour and often more.
I've seen the death certificates of a number of ancestors; a bit chilling but also instructive to know that they could write and spell a century or two before I landed on the planet.
How many of you have developed your family tree? Any notable citizens turn out to be related to you? Any infamous ones?
Hmmm...
Lots of questions here, and just maybe fodder for new storylines. Just what a writer needs, especially a fiction writer. As we all know, fiction is truer than fact in most cases. Well, we do, don't we?
TMWYT (tell me what you think)
Pat Dale