Families, past and present, are interesting concepts. Many
of us define ourselves by our nationality, by our culture, by the configuration
of our immediate families – number of siblings, birth sequence, presence or
absence of extended generations. For me family was a pretty tight little island
– two much older half-sisters (one gone now), only one grandparent alive during
my very young childhood, parents gone much too early, and then I left America
nearly 30 years ago and haven’t been back to visit very often since.
Things I regret: Not asking my parents more questions about
their backgrounds – though I have the feeling that there were some topics they
really didn’t want to discuss; not staying in better touch with cousins, aunts,
uncles – though many of them died when I was quite young. We were not a family
of letter writers. Well, I was in my day but with penfriends, not family
members. And I’ve moved house so many times in the past 40 years that I’ve
discarded or lost papers and mementos along the way.
In 2008 on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas Day for my
non-UK readers) we were in a café in Kenilworth after watching a duck race
(that’s another story…) and started talking about family history. My sisters
had a different father who I never met – the family story I had heard was that when
they were very small he was struck by lightning in a rowboat on a lake at a
church picnic. Was this true? I wanted to find out more. I also knew very
little about my grandparents and no knowledge of any of my family beyond my
parents parents. On New Year’s Day 2009, still in our pyjamas, we sat on the
sofa, fired up the laptop and discovered the joys of Ancestry.com’s free two
week subscription.
Things I learned: It’s good to have an unusual name with
multiple spellings; Canadians are mad about genealogy; old census records are a
fascinating read; California is much better than other states at putting up its
birth and death records (more on this in a moment). When you find an
interesting document or bit of data you react just like the people on the TV
programme Who Do You Think You Are, except no one is filming you (thank
goodness, considering the pyjama aspect) and you’re not famous.
I’d forgotten my father’s mother’s maiden name, but I found
a Californian death record of his sister Rita. She had been a country music
performer with her husband, who I remembered had an Italian name. The death
record pulled all this together and also pointed me to two birth records, a
daughter and son. The son was born the same year as me, I’d never heard of him.
A search of his name revealed that he was also a musician. I contacted him
through his MySpace page and discovered that not only had he played with Johnny
Cash for a number of years, he also occasionally toured the UK with a singer,
Eve Selis.
Eve visited the UK in 2010, but without her full band. We
met her in a little village hall in Tingewick, Buckinghamshire. She is a
powerhouse singer, a real force of nature. She is also one of the most
outgoing, positive people I’ve met. If you haven’t heard her, you must do so
now.
Finally last year in July my cousin Jim was on the tour and
one of the gigs was in Oxford, near enough for us to go. And the band had an
evening off in Stratford upon Avon, just down the road from us. We joined them
for an Indian meal with lots of chat. I brought some papers and info about my
father, the uncle Jim never met. Eve took a photo. Having so little close
family, I’m not used to looking like other people. The resemblance is striking
(see below).
Eve and band were in the UK this month and we got to see
them again at The Stables in Milton Keynes (super venue, you must go there
sometime). It was great to have the opportunity to chat with Jim again and the
band was astounding, as usual.
Things that amaze: One of Alun’s early jobs in the 1980s was
with the Milton Keynes Development Corporation, which took the area from
countryside and villages to a modern urban centre. He hadn’t seen it years and
we were agog at the huge-ness and “American-ness” of it; the amount of genealogy
information available now on the internet – not only was the lightning story
that started this search true (on-line newspaper archives, bless), but
eventually I was able to go back through even more generations and the number
of people I’m related to has increased exponentially.
Does
an interest or ability come from nature or nurture? I would have
thought the latter, but my parents were not especially musical (OK, they
would burst into song now and then, but neither ever played an
instrument or performed), and I've flitted around the edges of the music
world most of my life. We people are complex little pumpkins, aren't
we?
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| Eve Selis and me, Tingewick Village Hall 2010 |
Title song from "Family Tree"
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| Cousin Jim Soldi and me, July 2012 |
