I’ve been researching my family tree. I’ve always wanted to do it, but what finally spurred me on was Nikki‘s announcement that she had tracked her family line back to 100 A.D.

I don’t expect to be able to go as far back as that. Nikki had a head start, what with her aunt already having given her generations of information on their family. Meantime, I don’t think much of my family were the types to write down all their family information in the backs of bibles — names and dates of births, marriages, and deaths. Most were working people, so there probably wasn’t much incentive to track the family name like many old money families do. Plus, a lot of my family came through the Philippines, and records there just aren’t as good as they are in the states or in Europe. And I don’t think many of my family in the 1800s did much churchgoing, since churches are famous for keeping great records on their members’ pivotal events and there wasn’t much on my family in those records.

Still, I was hopeful. I wanted to track at least my maternal grandfather’s line to the United States and see if his family were recent immigrants from Europe. Long before my grandmother died, I asked her for as much information as she could give me, and she was able to give me some names and dates. I wish I had asked her sooner because even then I think her memory was going. But I signed up for a membership at one of those genealogy sites, where they give you access to a huge database of historical records and documents, and I used what I had, and somehow or other I managed to find out via the Army enlistment records that my great grandfather came from New York to the Philippines, probably for the Spanish-American war.

I also found out that he had dark blue eyes, dark brown hair, and a ruddy complexion, and he was six feet tall. He was born nearly 100 years before I was, but I often imagine what it must have been like for him in that strange tropical land, meeting the woman who later became his wife. She must have seemed exotic to him, as I imagine she was dark-eyed and dusky. He continued to be counted in the United States for census and voting purposes for at least 20 years, but he stayed and lived in the Philippines to have a family.

His father and mother stayed in New York. They were both born there, so that was probably all they knew. They lived in Cayuga County with their kids, and through the U.S. census records that I accessed, I watched as they aged and as the kids grew up and moved out. I know where one of their sons went (the Philippines, of course), but I don’t know what happened to the others. The census was taken only every 10 years, and because of a fire, the 1890 census wasn’t available.

In any case, I became even more fascinated with the generation before that. I watched as they, too, stayed pretty much in one area in New York, living and working as farmers/grocers/laborers, as the children grew up and out of the house. My great-great-great-grandfather lived to be in his 80s, at least, and probably in his 90s. He and his wife had five kids, and from 1850 to 1900, I watched the census records show the aging of their children, and as one child moved out, another was born. Then, sometime between 1870 and 1880, my great-great-great-grandfather’s wife died, leaving him a widower, and in 1880 the only child left living with him in his household was the youngest. By 1890, the youngest had moved out and gotten married, and my great-great-great-grandfather was left to live as a boarder among strangers.

That made me so sad. I wanted to go back in time, visit him regularly, and keep him company in his golden days. I could have knitted him scarves and grilled him for more information for the family tree.

So this is how I’ve been wasting my time, looking up my family and imagining all the drama of their lifetimes. Suddenly I can see how writers are able to write biographies about people long gone. You just get sucked in, wondering what they must have felt, how they must have managed, and it’s almost like you know them personally.

Anyway, I’ve hit a brick wall with my great-great-great-grandfather. The 1840 census records aren’t as detailed, and the ones before that are even less so, so I haven’t found anything about his parents yet. I know he was born in New York around 1818, but for all that I know, his parents could have been born anywhere. New York? In which case, they and their parents before them might have been early colonials, and wouldn’t it be ironic if I turned out to be one of those snobby daughters of the American Revolution, “my family came in on the Mayflower” types? Or they could have come somewhere from Europe, typical immigrants, in which case they could have descended from knights or lords, and I could be one of those “my ancestors were aristocrats/royalty” types. There were certainly many of the aristocracy with the same family name. I honestly don’t know. The possibilities are endless.

However, through various directories, I did manage to find out that my great-great-great-grandfather was a farmer and had 96 acres. That probably wasn’t a great big deal back then, but in these days, that’s a lot of land! I wonder who has all those acres now. Too bad they didn’t stay in the family. I’d probably be a rich girl.

And here we go again, with more imagining…

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