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| March 2008 |
| Billie Silvey |
| Genealogy --bringing family history to life |
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| By Barbara Webb I’ve always loved history. My sister and I kept “history files” of articles we had clipped from magazines. We both excelled in history classes. I loved “old things” in our grandparents’ houses. From the time I was very small, I remember both of my grandmothers telling me stories of their families and of their childhoods. I grew up knowing that Grandmother was from the North and that Granny was from the South. I knew some of the stories of their lifetimes, but not much about generations before. My interest didn’t extend very far beyond my love for them and for history and the happiness I saw in them when I would ask about their families. After college came marriage, career and children. I faithfully put the information I had in the boys’ baby books on the family tree pages and rushed on to the next task. Years later, with “empty nest” pressing in, I discovered genealogy and my world changed. I found it was much easier to trace Grandmother and Granddaddy than Granny and her husband, who had died when our father was a baby. The northern people kept excellent records while many of the southern records were destroyed, particularly by Sherman on his “march to the sea.” Remembering the names they told me proved invaluable in my search. I found that some family stories were factual while some were “embellished” almost beyond recognition. I found Revolutionary soldiers, including a real Minuteman (you had to be a member of a Train Band), pilgrims, crusaders, knights, Lady Godiva, and several ancestors who were Plantagenets and kings of Wales and France, even Charlemagne. However, it is still the stories that I love best. They are what flesh out the dates and make the people involved real. One of my favorite stories is of the major in the War of 1812, decorated for gallantry, who was accused of impropriety at the fort he commanded. He demanded a court martial and when acquitted, promptly challenged the offender to a duel. When the man declined to fight him, he had his second from the duel (later a Vice President of the United States) post signs all over town that the man was a coward. Another favorite is the ancestor who bought his land (Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands) from England, Spain, and other colonists and still didn’t feel he had clear title. So, he bought it again from the native Indians. When he was made governor for life, he made a law that no land could be taken from the Indians and that the Indians had to agree to the price. While the rest of the colonists were fighting, scalping and being scalped, relations on Martha’s Vineyard were so peaceful that often Indians were asked to serve as impartial judges in land disputes between colonists. There was the colonist, his wife and baby son of Longmeadow who were traveling to church in Springfield for the baby’s christening, escorted by a troop of forty soldiers. When they were attacked by eight Indians, the soldiers ran away. The father was mortally wounded but stayed on his horse until he reached Springfield. The mother and baby were captured and killed. This gave rise to the colonial poem, “Seven Indians, and one without a gun, caused Capt. Nixon and forty men to run.” There was the poor baby in the 1600’s whose mother managed to keep it alive for two years and eight days even though it weighed only eight pounds. There was the tanner whose toddler died when it fell into a vat of acid. There was the will from the father asking an ancestor to please take care of his brother whom God saw fit to make where he could not take care of himself. There was the signature of the daughter of a colonial governor that looks like it was printed by a four year old. (Her husband’s writing was excellent.) There were the women who dressed in their husband’s clothing and defended their town and captured a spy, who was then released by the men because he had already been punished enough by being captured by women. There was joy, sorrow, good, bad, justice, injustice, courage and cowardice--just like today. Does knowing any of this make a difference? In one way, it makes no difference at all. I’m still responsible for my own life and my own character and conscience. Although I can see some inherited character traits in myself, I am also a product of my individual life experiences. However, in other ways, knowing my ancestors makes a great deal of difference in my life. I feel even closer to history than ever before. Thanksgiving, for example, seems much more meaningful when I realize that it was my ancestors who suffered through the long period before that first harvest. It was my ancestors who risked torture and death when they forced another ancestor, King John, to sign the Magna Carta. I can empathize with their feelings. I find myself wanting to uphold the traditions they set. I see that people of today are not at all superior to people of the past. I feel the continuation of life and the fact that my ancestors realized their dependence on divine providence just as I do. |
| My sister Barbara Webb lives in Lubbock, Texas, with her husband Douglas. She works with a tutoring program at South Plains Community College. She has two sons--Chad, who is married to Joy, in Amarillo, and Brad in Houston. Two grandchildren, Autumn and Sam, continue her family history. |