Just a family story or the absolute truth?

In doing genealogy we often hear that we are to look askance at those family stories grandmother told us. More myth than truth, we've been told. So look to the records and turn our backs on the stories, was the advice. Hmmm. Bad advice.

I was thinking about this today when I was reading about the Irish story teller or seanachie. Story telling is a long tradition in Ireland and other Celtic areas. It's more than just a tradition, it's an art, really. There was no written record of the stories of each clan so it was the oral tradition that kept the very life and history of each clan alive. Additionally, bards were paid by the chieftain to tell the clan stories for education as well as to make up new stories for entertainment.

I know in my own family lines where the Irish tradition was kept and held dear, the family story had an honored place. Grandmothers were the tellers of stories and did it with pride and passion. They instructed the children of each generation with a serious intent that they all learn and remember the stories, the better to know who they were and who they came from. The stories helped define us as a clan in the New World.

Now I have a better grasp of which generations could read and write and had the option to make a written documentation of the family stories. Yet, they didn't do that. The written word was for the bible and legal matters, not family stories. Family stories were like a special treat, told only if you were good and sat quietly and listened. We loved the vast supply of stories told for entertainment and still retell them even today. Only now am I sorting out which stories were meant to educate us.

On my Mom's side, my 2nd great grandmother was born in Ireland and came here as a young girl. Mary Elizabeth Farrell was born 22 November 1835 and migrated with her parents and young sister, Catherine. They came in the years just before the Irish Famine, and we wonder if they saw the handwriting on the walls and got out. Or were they residents in one of the harsh Alms Houses and offered passage to get them off the government's rolls. We have yet to check the records in Ireland in any serious way, but we have a clue about where to look given to us by Mary Catherine herself!

My grandmother was Emma (Whetstone) Williams (1897 - 1956). She loved family and was proud to be first a Whetstone and then a Williams, two families with proud histories in the Western Maryland area where she lived. Her own grandmother was Mary Elizabeth (Farrell) House (1835 - 1919), who came from Ireland, and told the children stories she wanted them to remember. Mary Elizabeth told Emma that they came from the place in Ireland where St. Patrick drove out the snakes.

Yeah, I can hear the skeptics who dismiss such stories as bunk. I hear you loud and clear. But this is not just any family legend of made up stuff spun together out of the shadows from a fire on a winter's night. This is different.

It's an Irish origins story. Let me break it down for you. It's Irish. There are drinking stories and infant stories and fairie tales, and harvest stories, and summer horse race stories and more, much more. We are very particular about the type of stories we're telling. So this story of our family coming from the place in Ireland where St. Patrick drove out the snakes is a family story that conveys family history. And it's an origins story. You don't mess with origin stories especially family origin story. You can mess with drinking stories all you want, and are encouraged to do so. But do not mess with the family origin story.

And look what Mary Elizabeth did there! She wanted her descendants to remember where their people had come from so she put it out in the most memorable way possible. She said, where St. Patrick, the very patron saint of the land, did the most flamboyant (at least to my mind) act of his life. The very place where he drove the snakes out. Supposedly. But you see it doesn't matter if he did or didn't. This isn't about St Patrick or what he did. It's about remembering an important aspect of one family's story and putting emphasis on it in such a way that it is remembered.

See what I mean? So don't go and dismiss that family story outright because some guy with a blog says you should. Ask yourself what kind of a story-telling tradition your people came from. Are there different kinds of family stories? Then ask if your story is a frivolous one that entertains or a big import one about who your family was and what happened to them. And remember it might not be the best, most riveting full-blown epic story. It might simply be a short description of something that happened to your people, some time, some place. A bit of a fragment might be all that's left of that epic saga of the history of your clan. Is this a story for education or entertainment? That's a big clue.

My advice to you is to treasure that family story because it very possibly is the real deal.



The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2014/12/just-family-story-or-absolute-truth.html 

Stories by Mom: an introduction

If you've been a reader here for any length of time at all, you'll know that my Mom is alive and well, still kicking at 95! She lives by herself, mostly, and I say "mostly" because people just love her and are always coming by and staying for a while. People bring her soup and fresh made bread, because if you had a charming 95 year-old relative wouldn't you?

Everyone in town who has lived there any length of time or done any amount of genealogy around Western Maryland and especially in the little mountain town of Frostburg in Allegany County will have run into her either on the discussion boards or in years past at the courthouse, libraries, cemeteries, and historical institutions from Cumberland to all over in northern West Virginia and up into Pennsylvania. Genealogists who have ancestors on our direct line come from hundreds of miles to look at her files and chat with her. She's that kind of person. Everyone know Virginia Kelly.

Mom loves a good story and even more, loves a good mystery, genealogy style. She can still spot all those illegitimate births and unusual mating's form a mile away. If you have a criminal past and are in our direct line, she knows what you did. And don't be a missing person on our tree after 1800 because if you don't want to be found, too bad for you!

On one of my recent trips back east to see Mom while I was inspecting her bookshelf, I came across some steno notebooks where she wrote sources and discoveries in repositories, as she found them. Then at the end of one were some other writings: her stories from her own life. What a treasure! She read me a bit of it and I snuck out my cell phone and did a voice recording. I carry it with me, always.

When I got home I realized that if I was enjoying her stories from her own life, others would too, so she transcribed her handwritten words and typed them up. After some word processing fiasco that neither Mom nor I really want to talk about, I finally got the emails she sent with her typed documents, every bit of it.

When we all met up in Cleveland not too long ago I brought the first draft of it in booklet form. We all loved it. It needs more photos but doesn't everything? And I just know that Mom has already typed up a story about all the dogs in her life too. We just need to find it.

So here's what I plan to do. In the upcoming days Mom's stories will appear on this blog, complete with the photos we're using in her book. I do think that you'll really enjoy them. It starts just about the time when she was born in 1918 and travels through her childhood, teen years, and young adulthood. As you can spot right away, we're in small town life just before the Great Depression and on until just before WWII. Mom paints a picture of the joys and sadness's that touch almost every life no matter where or when, while closely describing her particular time and place.

Thanks, Mom for writing your stories. They are an instant family treasure!

Virginia (Williams) Kelly.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/11/stories-by-mom-introduction.html 

Merry Christmas to All, and Especially Mom and Aunt Betty

All the presents are wrapped and sent, all the cards are mailed. The potato latkes were really wonderful, if I do say so my own self;) Plans for Christmas Day are set and there's not much left to be busy with.

Have amused myself between holiday activities making an online album of historic photos by a photographer who worked in Frostburg, Maryland in the early years of last century, E. Gilbert Irwin. He put together a photo album of the National Pike being refined and it's a really important documentation of Western Maryland. Unfortunately, it's not been online as far as I know.

Fortunately, Mom has one of those albums. When I visited her last I took photos of the photos... OK, not the best way to proceed. I should have scanned then... that is the preferred practice for archiving. But I did what I could do in the time available with the equipment on hand.

I took each image into PhotoShop and sharpened the contrast, cropped to get rid of black edges, mostly. I know, it's not 100% pure to the artistic integrity of Mr. Irwin's work. But it's the best I can do now.

So click on the tab in the upper right that says "Album: Nat'l Pike". Or click here: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/p/album-natl-pike.html

If you want to know more about the National Pike, also called the National Road, go to WIKI at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Road

Bumbling Around Britain

This newbie is looking for records of my Revolutionary War ancestor, Nehemiah Newans. Reportedly from a family history (see tabs above) his family purchased a commission for him and he served with General Braddock but I need proof. So I've spent the morning on the British Archive web site trying my best to find records. Found out that what I need is under WO 12 (War Office) where the colonial muster and pay records are. Did not find it online so posted a note to them through their web site... it will be replied to within 10 working days the site says.

Have been enjoying my time researching Braddock and Washington before him in what's now Western Maryland, where my people come from. Found a downloadable book published in the mid-1800s containing all manner of details. Was delighted to read even more about the Braddock Expedition, but mid-read I sort of hit myself on the head and said to myself: was Newans even there?!

After all the only evidence we have at the moment is what's written in the printed family history entitled, "Ancestral History of Thomas F. Myers". That's pretty flimsy if you ask me. I'm at the point where it's evident that I need proof. Thus my foray into the British Archives. Keep your fingers crossed for me that the archivist who replies has good news:)