Do Special Holidays/Celebrations and Ancestry Have Something in Common?

Let me tell you how special holidays/celebrations and ancestry have something in common with a few family stories. A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated my husband’s birthday. Every year we have his favorite celebration pie. Most people have a special cake, but not my husband. Every year since we have been married, almost 36 years, I make from scratch his favorite cherry pie.

After singing the traditional songs “Happy Birthday” and “May You Have Many More” while my husband was cutting the pie, we started talking about him growing up and how his mom made his favorite cherry pie for his birthday. He also talked about him and his brother cutting the pie and making sure it was cut just right because who ever cut it, the other one got first “dibs” of the slices. So, of course they made sure it was “Even-Steven”.

Family Storytelling:

Now that our parents are no longer living, we are the ones that are telling the family stories. To our 7-year-old grandson, the pie story that was told by his grandpa hopefully brought his grandpa and great-grandma’s youths “to life” in our young grandson’s mind. I hope the stories we tell stick with our grandson like the ones that stayed with me that were told to me so long ago by my own grandma.

My grandma did a lot of storytelling and it wasn’t just during special holidays. Since my family lived only a few miles from our grandparents, I fondly remember from my childhood spending many sleepovers at my grandma’s house and I remember the stories she would tell me about my grandparent’s lives.

One Story: Half-Sister:

There was one story she told called “Half-Sister.” The story goes that her mother died when she was young and her father remarried. She didn’t like her stepmother, so she ran away (across the street, don’t worry) to her aunt’s house. She ran away so often that her father let her live with her aunt.

He and his new wife had a baby girl named Irene, but not too long after Irene was born, my grandma’s father passed away. She never really knew her half-sister as the stepmother and her half-sister moved away and the family never heard from them again, until one day, when my grandma was married and had a family she received a phone call from her half-sister. It was decided they were to meet at my grandma’s house.

Well, the story goes that there was a knock at the door and when my grandma answered there was nobody there. She saw in a distance a woman walking. Her story always ended there with her telling us that she never met Irene.

Genealogical Stories:

These verbal storytellings by my husband and my grandmother are examples of “genealogical stories.” 

Over 48 years after my grandma told me this story I was able to apply the memories from her storytelling as clues when I was working on her section in my ancestry tree.

From her story I was able to find and document her half-sister in my tree. I discovered that Irene lived only a few miles from my parent’s house, and by knowing about her I was prepared when my DNA connected to my grandma’s half-sister’s great-granddaughter. How cool is that!

My husband’s stories are now memories that only he and his brother will truly remember as there is nobody else left from that time to help tell those same memories. But while his story did not have a mystery for the future, it did give us a “peek into his past” about life when he was growing up.

Some things to consider with storytelling:

• Some stories that are told might not get documented and will only be verbally known.
• One way to get the stories documented is by interviewing the older generation about their memories.
• Transcribe the interview to a written transcript and save it to other modes like pdfs on computer or a travel drive. Many years ago, my sister interviewed my grandma using a cassette recorder. Several years ago, I asked my sister about the cassette as I was working on our grandma’s line at the time and she said she’d lost it.

• Once the interview is completed, add the stories to your tree as either a document or with a photo that includes the story.
• A bonus would be if your ancestry company allows you to add videos or voice recordings to the person in your tree. Currently Ancestry® does not have this feature (Although there are workarounds).
• Any video or voice recordings should be backed-up on a travel drive or on your computer to help preserve and make it easy access. Again, remember to make a transcript of the recording.

Wrap-up: Holidays/Celebrations and Storytelling

When families come together for holidays/celebrations, the gatherings usually involve family fun, family favorite foods and family storytelling.

By bringing everybody together we end up verbally sharing our memories and at the same time creating new memories to pass on to future generations.

Hopefully the memories will someday get documented by the family genealogist or the memories might even be clues to further their genealogical research.

If you would like to read more articles about genealogy, please visit my homepage: https://www.nancydrugenealogy.com/.