Two key points struck me from watching this show.
1) The Fourth Generation Snap
It's seem clear to me that the fourth generation is where the link breaks in families. Marisa had limited information about her great grandfather. It may be that events such as immigration or early death are really the factors behind these breaks. But none the less by the fourth generation family history information is either lost, forgotten or morphed into something erroneous (as it was in Marisa's case). This is where it transforms into the realm of oral history where we say it's based on a kernel of truth but not the whole truth. Marisa and her mother did have some of the story right about her great grandfather but the story shifted to have negative connotations which turned out to be untrue.
Many regular people (by this I mean non-genealogists) can't name any of their great grandparents. Some even have difficulty with their own grandparents' names. Is it that we feel connected to the generations that we have known personally and anything beyond is simply history? Or have we given up trying to pass down a strong sense of family history that will continue from generation to generation?
2) We carry emotional burden on the past
One of the most interesting aspects of this episode was that Marisa's mother was carrying some family shame because of what happened to Marisa's great grandfather and becuase she believed that he had somehow disgraced the family. It's interesting that someone who has been dead for three generations can impact the emotional well-being of the living. She was carrying around a very real sense of shame and yet it was not true. The great grandfather had not disgraced the family. In fact, the opposite was true. He was a man of honor and the person who killed him was the coward.
It strikes me that emotions surrounding family history are powerful indeed if you can be weighed down by something you've been told that is several generations in the past. I wonder how many people are carrying a burden that is not founded on truth? Is the answer to withdraw emotional baggage from previous generations in a wholesale dump or is it better to try to seek out the truth for better or for worse? In this case seeking the truth worked out well but it many case I imagine it wouldn't.
For me, this was a very thought provoking episode in these two regards. I'm sure I will continue to look for examples from others. If you've experienced either scenario in your family let me know. And let me know how it played out.
Photo Credit: Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons
I haven't seen this show but you've definitely piqued my interest here. I was talking about something similar over the weekend with an interview subject with respect to African American and Jewish sensibilities regarding the past. When I think about shame in the African American context of genealogical research, it may just be that particular issue that makes it so difficult to know/find out who you are in the United States. You mention the sense of shame that Marisa Tomei's mother felt about an incident that had ultimately not happened they way family lore had recounted, I think about my own past attempts to get information from elderly relatives (now long dead) and even older relatives like my parents or aunts and uncles. I always knew that somehow a sense of shame about slavery, the indignities of poverty, Jim Crow, racism, etc. is what fueled the silence (boy were my elder tight-lipped!) of oldest living ancestors and then the lack of knowledge of older relatives who remain living. Your post has made me think even more of the generations of African Americans who have carried the shame of slavery, really without being able to articulate it, how time has transformed those horrifying experiences into a huge, unwieldy load to bear and how those of us (I'm speaking about the challenges of African American genealogy in particular here) trying to piece together our family histories keep hitting brick walls as a result.
ReplyDeleteI've been working on my g-g-grandfather mystery--supposedly he died when my g-grandfather was young, but he didn't. He actually lived much longer and now it's beginning to look like he deserted the family and lived as an itinerant farmhand. The emotion I feel is sadness because of the hardships they all endured.
ReplyDeleteWhen I began researching 14 years ago, I didn't know the names of my great grandparents. The names and facts came from my parents and aunts and uncles, but my paternal great grandfather...hmm...I got a 'I only talk about the good things' response. Flags went up. One cousin heard one thing, another cousin something else. A kernel here, a kernel there. When the 1930 census was released, I found him in prison. There was, and still is 'shame' in certain corners of the family. My own grandfather had saved newspaper clippings about his Dad, and after grandpap's death others had burned them. I know now my Italian immigrant great grandfather was holding the bloody knife, he was the murderer. I don't feel shame. It is truth, I have seen the paper trail, for better or worse. I can't change the past, it is history.
ReplyDeleteI am fortunate in that I got to meet four of my eight great grandparents personally and two of them I actually have lots of memories of conversations we had. I just wish that I had been bitten by the genealogy bug at that young age so I could have asked them about their childhoods before they passed on.
ReplyDeleteI think if one digs hard enough and deep enough into their family tree, they will find a scandal of some sort. I know I have found a few. I have never been ashamed of any of them. Although we are a product of our ancestors, we aren't our ancestors and we didn't live in the same time with the same conditions as they. Had we too lived with the same conditions, we might have created the same scandals. Now I just record them so that perhaps my daughter will someday read them and learn from the lesson as I'm sure my ancestors who were in the scandal did.
Oh Marian! If you are not familiar with Marisa Tomei's professional career, you must rush right out and rent *My Cousin Vinny* for which she won best supporting actress. The award was well deserved. A stunning performance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Cousin_Vinny
ReplyDeleteJust like in Marisa'a family, it's amazing to me how many times our family history has been twisted. Family lore and tradition is so much like work place rumors. The last person to repeat the story has it so twisted that it resembles little of it's original story. Any time I am told family lore I have learned to take it with a grain of salt and use it only as a means to find informaiton like Marisa did. It helped her to know where to go to find the records, but the events that occured were so ratically different then the family lore. I loved this episode because it shows the real pit falls for family tradition.
ReplyDeleteMarian, thank you for this analysis. Although I like every WDYTYA episode, and the concept, my first set of feelings was that this was one of the weaker episodes. Your take on it, however, reminds me to be even more open-minded than I thought I was. You certainly make excellent points.
ReplyDeleteI'm of the "I'm in it!" (with respect to the 1940 census) generation, just barely. The generation of my parents (and those of my wife) and their siblings, seems to have been one where 'keeping secrets' about earlier generations was "the think go do" - or, they were taught to think that way. We have several blatant examples, just in our two sets of families. It is sad, but it seems a "sign of the times." I hope more recent generations have learned that "bearing those burdens" makes little sense. Sharing information and the age of social media and other technologies should encourage us to seek "the truth" - whatever that might be. [Stepping down off my soap box.] Thanks, again, for this post! ;-)
Marian, in some branches of my families, I've run across some individuals whose story has been passed down with "attitude."
ReplyDeleteFor example, a story about a much-older relative was told to me by my mother, remembering what she heard as a girl. In this case of a "missing" father (we call them deadbeat dads now) that she shared with me, the man was actually an employee of the railroads who, in a fall while working on the trains, had his head severed in a freak work accident. Killed instantly, he left his young, pregnant bride to bear and raise her son alone.
Now that I've gotten access to data that helps me determine what, exactly, did happen in situations such as this, I've discovered that oral histories like that can carry the burden of personal "spin" of the elders passing the story along. Because this was from the in-law side of my maternal grandmother, can you guess what attitude she had toward her husband's side of the family? Her remarks about this family were translated in the young mind of my mother, who as an adult passed along those same attitude-stained stories to me. But, as you've already read, the issue of deadbeat dad was not the case at all--a cruel way to mis-characterize such a tragic incident via mere assumption.
There have been other inter-family misunderstandings. Some have resulted, over the years, in estrangements. Instead of picking up the grudges and prejudices of the generations before us, my husband and I have learned to meet with those living relatives, ourselves, and establish our own bias-free relationship with such individuals in question. We can't go on bearing others grudges and passing down misinformation and character assassination to the next generation, perpetuating the problem. We've actually grown to love some of those estranged people from our previous generations--or, at least, made our own peace with them before they died.
It is so much better to find out the truth for ourselves, and act accordingly. Passing along a previous generation's grudges does no one any good.
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteYour comment really touched me. I believe African Americans have a particular burden they carry. Hopefully the shadow of shame has been lifted for modern researchers but I'm afraid the veil of shock and sadness will never go away.
Marian
Jacqi,
ReplyDeleteYou and your husband are a wonderful role model for everyone doing genealogical research. I love that you put rumors aside and went to meet with people to decide for yourself. Bravo!
Marian
Dr. Bill,
ReplyDeleteI'm sure by now you know I like to find my own interpretation in all things ;) But equally as important to me, I like to like to learn new ways to look at things from other people.
Marian
In regard to Rachel's comment I find the same shame thing on the slave owner's side.
ReplyDeleteMy dad (now 92) has been working on genealogy for years and years. I've dabbled in it but am now diving in headlong. The other day we were talking about our Boggess line and he said that he had something to tell me about that. With a pained look he said "You need to know they owned slaves in Virginia in the 1600's and 1700's". He was genuinely upset about that and has sort of kept it to himself (when he tells family stories) for decades.
I understand the sentiment completely and it's not an aspect of the family that I would hold up as highlight. It bothers me greatly but I think I accept it as "history" rather than "shame" a bit more easily than my father does though I don't discount my loathing for the practice. It's a difficult thing to get over.
I had a client who believed that her great grandfather was American Indian, the whole family believed it but had no other family information than his name and birth,death dates, etc. So when I was hired to look into it, I found he was not AI, but his mother was Italian! The whole family idea of American Indian heritage went out the window on Christmas day when she gave her mother a box with all my findings and changed how they viewed themselves. It was quite something to be a part of that. Luckily they were surprised at what I found and very happy.
ReplyDelete