Between the Lines

"There are many stories between the lines."

- J. K. Rowling on the Black Family Tree

Okay, so I'm really, REALLY into genealogy. Truth be told, I find it fascinating. I've devoted much of the past year of my life to researching my family's history and lineage for many reasons, something a lot of people would probably find boring. I don't though, because for me, it's a challenge. Doing genealogy research is like attempting to put together a really large puzzle - only you don't have all the pieces, some pieces seem impossible to connect, and every time you do connect two pieces, the puzzle itself expands. It's frustrating, but it's so crazy, the types of things you can find out.

Before I really started this past year of research, I thought I knew a lot about my family. My father's side of the family was a direct line from a Mayflower Pilgrim, after all. I didn't know much about my mother's side of the family, and I wanted to, but it seemed unlikely that her lineage would trump my father's. As it turns out, both sides of my family have some insane genealogy that I never would have expected.

What would you find among the branches of your family tree?

  On my father's side of the family, I'm a direct descendant of at least two Mayflower Pilgrims (the second which I had no knowledge of until recently), and I'm distantly related to more than a couple of U.S. Presidents and several famous entertainers. I managed to find someone online who's something like the 5th half-cousin once removed of my grandmother, and through his records, was able to trace one half of my grandmother's family not just back across the Atlantic to Norway, but back from Norway to Denmark in the late 1600s. The person I got in contact with had an entire website up dedicated to family genealogy, and through a common however-many-times great-grandfather, I was able to add over 200 relatives to my family tree. Because he lives in Denmark, he also owns or has access to a number of old family artifacts, including a portrait of that great-grandfather I just mentioned. I've always thought my father looked more like my grandfather than my grandmother, but holy crap, my father's nose and lips are identical to that great-grandfather's - even though they lived over 200 years apart!

On my mother's side of the family, I was anything but prepared for the things I found out. As it turns out, my mother's maiden name is a very, very old Italian name, and by very old, I mean it turns up in records as early as the 7th or 8th century. It apparently comes from a man who came from another country and conquered part of modern-day Italy; everyone with the last name in Italy is considered to be descended from him. He settled there and had children, becoming a noble, and along with a number of famous descendants, including at least one (infamous) pope and an old Italian princess, there are a whole bunch of freaking castles that - to this day - belong to, used to belong to, and/or were named for the family. I haven't found a definitive genealogical connection yet, but my great-aunt, who unfortunately passed away long before I began my research, always insisted that we were directly related to Italian royalty/nobility. She'd had information on our direct line going back several centuries, and she was an extremely intelligent but humble woman - unless she verified that information 10 ways from Sunday, I don't think she'd have told anyone. It wouldn't be a big deal to her that she was related to such people; it would just be a big deal to her that she was able to go that far back.

I've also found out a lot of things that probably aren't interesting to other people, but they are very interesting to me. Take, for example, the fact that one of my great-grandfathers was a barber. His brother was also a barber. No one had any idea how my great-grandfather met my great-grandmother, but as it turns out, her brother was also a barber who lived in the same area. Whether they ever worked together I couldn't tell you, but it's something that could easily explain how they originally met. Being related to all those barbers is also kind of funny when I think about the fact that I cut my own hair. To my knowledge, I'm the only one in the family that does, and I'm good at it. I've taken as much as eight inches off and people tell me it looks professionally done. One of my grandmother's also used to sew all the time; she made everything, and she was good at it. As it turns out, her grandfather worked in women's clothing as a "presser," and it seems like his siblings did too.

All in all, it's been shocking to discover the stories between the lines, to realize how much we don't know - or don't expect - about where we come from. There's a lot of truth in the way people say, "It's a small world." In some ways, it feels like that's an understatement; a lot of the time, we may be more connected than we think.

Have you ever looked into your own genealogy and found something you definitely weren't expecting?