It’s name is genealogy. It took root in my blood back in 1970. At the time I was a fairly new employee at Northwest Orient in the Twin Cities. The BRAC went on strike and being young and poor, my first instinct was to just go back on home to Havana and wait it out. I guess I must have seemed bored, at any rate my mother suggested that I work on family history. Little did she know that she was planting this seed in my soul that would survive and flourish many years in the future.
This of course was all before the internet. My research consisted of talking to older relatives, visiting every cemetery that I could find in the search for names and dates., and most importantly, writing letters. I still have many of the letters I received over the years and treasure them as so many of the writers have passed away. Many a clue has been gleaned by rereading these letters and sometimes reading between the lines too.
The strike was over before my research really got too far and I headed back to work with my 3 x 5 cards. They got stuck in a drawer and forgotten about for many years.
In the 1990’s I again found the time and interest to start the search again. Found my old 3 x 5’s and dug in. The difference now was the internet. Not that there was that much info online yet, but it was the ease of communicating with others, the mailbox just a click away. I connected with more and more of the family that had the same interests in family history. And yes, still used snail mail to connect with some older relatives that weren’t into the computer age yet. I still get a thrill from seeing a missive in my real mail box. It’s such a joy to get mail that is not bills!
MAC—this is a little moniker that i call some people in my family tree. It started back when I was corresponding with a cousin that was no blood relation. And of yes, there are many in the tree that have no actual link to you other than circumstance. It can be from a variety of reasons, adoption and/or remarriage of a widow with children in tow, an indiscretion, a variety of reasons. But, a real family tree embraces them all and some of my very favorite relatives have turned out not to be relatives after all. MAC- stands for Mutually Accepted Cousin. Back in the 90’s, I became acquainted with an older cousin on my mom’s side. His was the story of a widow with children married to my great uncle. No blood relation, but ended up with the new father’s last name, as so often happened in the old days. We corresponded by years through email and snail mail and were even able to meet in person one summer in North Dakota. I remember one time he even mailed me a road map of Poland, not because we shared Polish roots, but just because he knew of my struggle with that branch of my tree. We shared that fascination with family history and he’ll always be my MAC.
Today my genealogy data base has grown to over 7,000 names of the living and dead. It is an obsession, some may even call an insidious disease, but a fascinating hobby it very much can be. I hope the next generation will push onwards and I know they will, for one reason that stands out, another little moniker called DNA. If I were young today, I know just what I would study. DNA is key to everything, not just genealogy, that is just a little added bonus. But too late and too old to start a new career, that will be up to the next generations.. Peace to all and happy ancestor hunting!
