A Graduation Gift

When I graduated from high school, my grandmother promised to take me on a trip to Ireland. Her mother, Mary Ellen Brennan, immigrated from Ireland to the US as a young woman. Her father, Martin Hannigan, was also 100% Irish, as both his parents immigrated here from Ireland. My grandmother had traveled there with her brother many years before, but she wanted to take me to see how beautiful it was.

We spent two weeks touring. I was 18 years old, whiny, and insisted on eating burgers and fries at every juncture because the fancier food the tour was providing was not to my liking. Somehow, she did not kill me before we returned home. In exchange, I didn't kill her when she began insisting she had never been given the claims form she would need to get back through US Customs (which I had seen them give her five minutes before).

These are a few of the snapshots from our trip:

Fake beer in the fake pub. My grandma's in the middle.

Surly teen face

Us with the two great tour guides. For the record, I told her that shirt was see-through!

Thank you, Mommom!

My Strange (and Estranged) Family

It seems natural that people interested in family history would be interested in cultivating relationships with their living relatives. After all, some of them are older than us, and they may have interesting information to share. Plus, what we document now for our living relatives could be great to pass on to future historians in our families.

Sometimes though, it doesn't work out that way.

In my strange little family, there are a lot of off limits family members, for various reasons. My grandfather has been estranged from his brother for about 15 years now. He is the second oldest person in my maternal family, and theoretically could be a source of info for me. However, my grandfather is the oldest, and he was definitely the closest with his mother, whom I am very interested in. I don't think he would mind necessarily if I contacted his brother, but knowing the details of their falling out, I am definitely 'Team Gramps' and cannot bring myself to do it. For now, I've filled in what I know about my grand uncle and his family, and I get plenty of information from my grandfather. Don't ask him about his love life though. The response is: "Some things a granddaughter doesn't need to know." To be clear, I was not asking for sordid details. My actual question was, "What was the name of the woman you were in love with before you met my grandmother?" Apparently, it was too personal.

Here's the heartthrob himself, with another woman he refuses to name!

In my paternal line, some of my questions could be very easily answered by living relatives. For instance, the post from yesterday (Who was Grandma Alice?), I'm sure could be answered quite easily by either my biological father or any of his siblings. For personal reasons, I have not had contact with any of my paternal family as an adult. And yet, I am very interested in their/my lines. My grandparents and great grandparents are very interesting to me. I wonder if any one else feels similarly to me on this.

It does make for very interesting research. On my mother's side I have both grandparents and a mom who loves family history, and I can share my findings with them, ask questions to my heart's delight, etc. On the other side I am flying blind, other than what my mother remembers learning about them in the early 80s (not to diminish that--she has an excellent memory!).

When genealogy leads you to the dark side...

Tonight, as I finished writing a letter to an old friend turned pen pal, I stopped and looked at my handwriting. I thought of my mother's handwriting, which I have always loved. Her writing is a mix between print and penmanship. For a while in high school, I perfected the art of forging it to skip school. Thinking of this, and of my grandparents' writing, I thought... if I have children, I wonder if they will look at my writing someday and think about how beautiful it is, and how it reminds them of all the little notes in their lunch boxes, the 'I miss you!' cards when they're away, the letters on special occasions.

I shared this with my partner, who naturally then asked, "Is genealogy making you want kids more?"

My grandmother holding my mother, approx. Dec 1961

Well.

Good question.

I have had a staunchly anti-parenting plan for my entire adult life. I did not want children. Now, puppies and kittens, I could get on board with. But kids? Money-siphoning, back talking, germ spreading kids? No thank you. At 28 years old, I find that my uterus has turned against me. I'm questioning my life plans. I know it's hormones, but my God, they are powerful.

Thinking about the bonds between families, spending time talking to mine, looking at the records of people long since past... none of this is helping in my battle against the biological clock. I think my girlfriend is right. Gulp.

I need to adopt a kitten. Stat.