Celebs Search for Roots

Q: What do Gwyneth Paltrow, Rosie O’Donnell, Ashley Judd, and Emmitt Smith have in common?

A: Yeah, yeah, I know: they’re celebrities. But beyond that, they’re all taking an interest in family history, and they’ve all been featured on the NBC reality TV show Who Do You Think You Are?

Learning about your ancestors can be pretty compelling, as Ms. Judd discovered in a conversation on the program with Boston genealogist Joshua Taylor of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. She discovered that her paternal ancestor William Brewster, 13 generations removed, apparently came to the colonies in 1620, on the Mayflower.

Gwyneth Paltrow met a distant relative, Geoffrey Skeete, in Barbados, upon learning that her great-great-grandmother was born there. It turns out the Skeete family was among the first British families to arrive in Barbados, in 1612. Another line of investigation revealed that her great-great grandfather was an orthodox rabbi from the border of Poland with Russia, under the name Paltrowitz or Paltrovich.

Family history seeker Rosie O’Donnell’s journey to see first hand the workhouse where her Irish ancestors labored under squalid conditions was televised on the program. She learned that upon arrival at the workhouse in Birr, Ireland, the men and women were segregated, and children as young as two years old were taken from their parents, never to see them again until they were released from service. Many of the residents slept four to a bed on straw mattresses on the floor, leading to the rapid spread of cholera or typhoid. Sometimes, up to 10 people died each day.

African-American football Hall-of-Famer Emmitt Smith discovered that his ancestor Mariah was the daughter of a slave and her owner. A common practice among slaveholders, Smith was told, was that those whose dalliances resulted in pregnancy sold mother and unborn child, so that their wives would not have a constant reminder of their unfaithfulness. However, this was not the case with Mariah. For Smith, it seems, he came to appreciate his own values over those of his white, slave-holding ancestor’s, just another facet of how pursuing family history can prove life-affirming for those still living.

Genealogy is a fascinating study, and the more we know about it, the better we understand our own and our families’ place in the world. However, genealogy is limited, in that it can only reveal what was recorded in historical documents.  However, it is the details in the stories above that capture our interest. I would argue that the stories are what bring the facts to life. How much greater our knowledge would be, if we had diaries and journals, or better still, if we could go back in time and interview our ancestors, to learn about their challenges and their accomplishments, their joys, and their sorrows!

Some of us may be fortunate enough to unearth more of our family’s story through journals or diaries. Perhaps some of it has been handed down by word of mouth. Write it down now, before you forget. If you can’t do it yourself, get someone to help you. If a family member is not available or willing to help, turn that shoebox full of family photos, letters, and documents over to a personal historian. He or she can assist you in documenting your family history in a way that will be treasured through the generations. If you have living family members whose stories should be preserved, interview them or get someone else to do so.

If you wait, you may be too late. Those who know the story, or even you yourself, may no longer be with us, if you wait too long. I know this from personal experience. I lost my father and my brother before their stories could be recorded. Although it was in my mind before they died, by the time I got around to interviewing my dad, he was apparently experiencing some Alzheimer’s and could no longer remember much. In my brother’s case, he was simply too ill to be interviewed by the time we learned he did not have much time left; he could barely speak. Even if he could have, cancer affects the mind as well as the body and dredging up his life story would have been too difficult for him.

In my brother’s case, he left journals behind. Unfortunately, they are not in my possession, and so far, I have not been able to get them. Will you regret not having your family stories some day down the road? If so, I urge you to start recording them, any way you can.

***

A postscript . . . my experiment in October, the Family History Month discount, did not result in the collection of any stories to share in this blog.  Therefore, I am extending this offer until the end of December 2011. If you send me a family story of 250 words or less that is selected for publication in the blog, I will give you a 10 percent discount on any family history project you hire me to conduct, if I am engaged for the work by the end of the year, and you mention the discount offered on the blog. I’m looking forward to seeing your stories!

(Author’s note:  Many thanks to NBC for the fascinating program, Who Do You Think You Are? The credit for Paltrow, Judd, O’Donnell and Smith family history inquiries goes to producers of the show.)

Good morning!

Did you know that October is Family History Month? Well, it is.  How will you observe it? Here are some suggestions:

1. Spend some time looking through family photo albums with loved ones
2. Investigate your roots via Ancestry.com or another genealogical website
3. Reminisce while going through those trunks of grandma's in the attic
4. Take a trip to the old home place

If none of these meet your definition of a fitting observation of the occasion, consider compiling some of your family history by writing about it or interviewing an older relative.  Many people have done this, and many others intend to do so.

If you are one of those folks who "intend to" but have yet to start, whether it is because you don't know where to start, or you just don't have the time, a personal historian can help. We can coach you on the process or just take the responsibility off your shoulders and make it easy for you to preserve your famly history by doing it for you. Then, you won't regret not having started when you discover Aunt Bessie's memory isn't what it used to be.

During the month of October, I invite you to take the first step. Send me, via this website's email comment function, a brief account of one of your family member's adventures.  If it is selected to be published on the website in my next blog, I'll give you a 10 percent discount on your family history project. (This will probably benefit you the most if you live in the Southwest!). Be sure to provide me your US Post Office mailing address, so that I can send you a certificate for the discount, which will be effective until Dec. 31, 2012.

Even if you don't end up hiring me to do your family history, you and your family will be still able to access the selected family stories in my blog.

Remember: tell your story, get a discount!

Hello, out there! It's great to have the opportunity to express my thoughts and ideas about the importance of oral history and personal history. However, I have a confession to make. I don't really have a blog article today. However, I can tell you a little bit about how I became interested in oral history and personal history. I will look forward to your comments.

When I graduated from college with a BA in journalism, I immediately went to work as a reporter. I worked for several small newspapers in New Mexico over the next half-dozen or so years. When I began working for The New Mexican in Santa Fe as a feature writer, I often had occasion to do personality pieces on individuals who had been selected to be honored as Living Treasures by the Santa Fe Network for the Common Good.  

These individuals were generally ordinary people who had done extraordinary things for their community. They ranged from healers and artists to dancers, scientists, teachers, and shopkeepers. They were EuroAmerican, Hispanic, Native American, and Asian. What was unusual about this program was that while most people who are honored have a plaque put on a building or a street named for them after their deaths, these folks were honored BEFORE their deaths.

The Network's program had several facets, all of them a meaningful part of the whole. To begin with, the honoree was the subject of an oral history interview. Next, a photo montage of the individual was made in his or her home or working environment. These items were archived, so that they would be available to future generations. Finally, the individual was the guest of honor at a gathering of friends, family, and admirers called a "purposeful reminiscing." Anyone who had a memory to share about the individual could do so. These gatherings also were recorded.

These events were occasions when even hardened reporters had to dig out their hankies. Just being in the same room with some of these folks was truly an honor--more than I could say about a lot of the people I covered while assigned to, say, city hall or the Santa Fe County government.

In the long-run, though, what became apparent was that a seed had been planted: my interest in oral history began to grow. For one thing, the field uses many of the same skills that are called upon in journalism. Another aspect that seemed custom-made for me was that not being able to keep one's sources "at arm's length" became less a sin. So, when, in future years, I would have to go take photos of the Senior Citizens Valentine's Dance in Española, NM, I would be thinking: "Wouldn't it be neat to come back and do an oral history with these folks?" Well, that was one of many ideas I did not carry out.

However, given the chance, I continued my education, completing a Master's Degree in English with a subspecialty in folklore and oral history. I have since had the opportunity to conduct oral histories with numerous individuals, many of them ranchers from Southern and East Central New Mexico. Much of this work has been done under the auspices of companies whose primary focus is archaeology, but which sometimes are called upon to include historical components in their projects.

In attempting some independent research, I once did a lousy job of explaining what happens during the course of an oral history interview. That was a disaster, leading to much misunderstanding! However, I’ll try to do better here. One may think that all that's happening in an interview is that you are preserving a part of history known only to the interviewee. And while that IS a big part of what is happening—and the preservation of that history is purportedly the REASON we do it—that is far from all that is happening, at least, in the best interviews. In these, I prefer to describe what happens as a spiritual exchange: it's like getting a glimpse of someone's soul. And in turn, they get a glimpse of their interviewer's soul. These are the interviews in which our subjects implore us "don't forget me!" or whose families write expressing gratitude that their relative's memories were preserved.

So, recording history via oral interviews is important not only because it documents aspects of history known only to the individuals who lived it, but because through it we also glimpse the spark of their personalities—their souls, as it were. This, I believe, is sound proof that these individuals did indeed pass this way and that each of them matter.