PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF RESEARCHING ANCESTORS
Brenda Kellow
January 23, 2011
Recently a study crossed my desk on motivational factors for someone beginning to research their family history. The study included two groups: those reared with their biological parents and those who grew up with adoptive parents. Many of the reasons for pursuing family history were the same for both groups. Some groups found that striving to find the meaning of their life was a major reason.
Many of the two groups thought of the research as an adventure while others thought it began as a means of therapy. Nevertheless, the reasons sought covered connection and meaning to loss and identity. Thinking back, my research probably began as a means of connecting with ancestors to find out from whom I got my hair color, eyes, and long fingers and identify relatives across the country. On the other hand, yard work was my therapy, not genealogy at all. Who knew that our ancestor search would grow into formal psychological factors?
Many factors propel us toward finding our roots. It might be as simple as the birth of a new child, a marriage or family loss to remind us of our life cycle. The need to contact distant and unknown relatives may trigger the investigation. A personal or family related health problem may jumpstart our belief in our mortality. Collecting or commissioning family history for these reasons is a solution or a coping mechanism. It becomes a challenge. One possibly begun because of the erroneous belief that ‘everything you want to find’ is on the Internet. The Internet has blossomed in the past decade, but the trick to the Internet is to know where to look. It is still necessary to conduct manual research.
Most families will have a skeleton or two. An investigation to study family secrets may trigger the need to confirm the intricacies of our kinfolk. One of my close friends found her ancestor had skipped out on his wife and kids back east and moved to Utah where he committed bigamy by marrying another woman and had more children. The kicker to this was that both women applied for the man’s Civil War pension. Busted. A couple of my lines have kept an adoption secret. One was because the couple decided they did not want a child and therefore ‘gave’ the child away. Another was a case where the grandparents adopted the child born to their unmarried daughter. Today about four out of ten children are illegitimate.
Other families try to confirm the legend of landed gentry, the family’s military general, movie star, a famous or infamous person, or to connect their family to a rich family with immense holdings. Heir searches connect relatives to the estate of a wealthy deceased individual. These are the stories so popular in fiction books today, but they are just myths. Only occasionally are one of these stories, or dreams, documented, but that is rare.
In the past, societies remained closer together. Now, the nuclear families are more geographically diverse probably due in part to job relocation. Our modern Western culture tends to have a written history as opposed to non-Western cultures’ oral histories.
Searching family histories is harmless fun hobby to give as gifts to relatives. Conducting family search combines history with finding biological roots.
PLANO GENEALOGY LIBRARY has the Planonian online for 1914 (the first true yearbook), 1923, 1943, and 1945. They are currently adding more online. Favorite yearbook features are clothes, hairstyles, and the descriptive words used. The 1945 yearbook uses ‘Class Morons’ instead of class clowns or class cutups. Historian Peggy Mitchell stated that instead of using ‘Teacher’s Pet’ they preferred the term ‘Apple polishers.’ You can access the yearbooks at http://contentdm.planolibrary.org/.
Brenda Kellow has a bachelor's degree in history, teaches, and lectures on genealogy. Before retiring to publish her family’s histories in 2007, Brenda held certification as a Certified Genealogist and as a Certified Genealogical Instructor. Send reunion announcements, books to review, and genealogy queries to: [email protected].
Many of the two groups thought of the research as an adventure while others thought it began as a means of therapy. Nevertheless, the reasons sought covered connection and meaning to loss and identity. Thinking back, my research probably began as a means of connecting with ancestors to find out from whom I got my hair color, eyes, and long fingers and identify relatives across the country. On the other hand, yard work was my therapy, not genealogy at all. Who knew that our ancestor search would grow into formal psychological factors?
Many factors propel us toward finding our roots. It might be as simple as the birth of a new child, a marriage or family loss to remind us of our life cycle. The need to contact distant and unknown relatives may trigger the investigation. A personal or family related health problem may jumpstart our belief in our mortality. Collecting or commissioning family history for these reasons is a solution or a coping mechanism. It becomes a challenge. One possibly begun because of the erroneous belief that ‘everything you want to find’ is on the Internet. The Internet has blossomed in the past decade, but the trick to the Internet is to know where to look. It is still necessary to conduct manual research.
Most families will have a skeleton or two. An investigation to study family secrets may trigger the need to confirm the intricacies of our kinfolk. One of my close friends found her ancestor had skipped out on his wife and kids back east and moved to Utah where he committed bigamy by marrying another woman and had more children. The kicker to this was that both women applied for the man’s Civil War pension. Busted. A couple of my lines have kept an adoption secret. One was because the couple decided they did not want a child and therefore ‘gave’ the child away. Another was a case where the grandparents adopted the child born to their unmarried daughter. Today about four out of ten children are illegitimate.
Other families try to confirm the legend of landed gentry, the family’s military general, movie star, a famous or infamous person, or to connect their family to a rich family with immense holdings. Heir searches connect relatives to the estate of a wealthy deceased individual. These are the stories so popular in fiction books today, but they are just myths. Only occasionally are one of these stories, or dreams, documented, but that is rare.
In the past, societies remained closer together. Now, the nuclear families are more geographically diverse probably due in part to job relocation. Our modern Western culture tends to have a written history as opposed to non-Western cultures’ oral histories.
Searching family histories is harmless fun hobby to give as gifts to relatives. Conducting family search combines history with finding biological roots.
PLANO GENEALOGY LIBRARY has the Planonian online for 1914 (the first true yearbook), 1923, 1943, and 1945. They are currently adding more online. Favorite yearbook features are clothes, hairstyles, and the descriptive words used. The 1945 yearbook uses ‘Class Morons’ instead of class clowns or class cutups. Historian Peggy Mitchell stated that instead of using ‘Teacher’s Pet’ they preferred the term ‘Apple polishers.’ You can access the yearbooks at http://contentdm.planolibrary.org/.
Brenda Kellow has a bachelor's degree in history, teaches, and lectures on genealogy. Before retiring to publish her family’s histories in 2007, Brenda held certification as a Certified Genealogist and as a Certified Genealogical Instructor. Send reunion announcements, books to review, and genealogy queries to: [email protected].