Genealogy Blog Family History

More Family History CoolnessPosted by Administrator on December 3rd, 2009

I am fortunate to have parents who love family history. And even after over 30 years of hearing their stories about pilgrims and Civil War heroes, they still manage to bring up some that I’ve never heard before. I knew my great-grandfather was an outlaw and then an oil man in Southern CA (I guess the oil industry hasn’t changed much:). I knew my great-great-grandmother came as a pioneer from the Hawaiian islands to the desert of Northern Utah. I knew some of our forebears were among the passengers of the famous Mayflower. And still others of our ancestors were closely related to William Wallace of Braveheart fame. But this new goes farther back and may be cooler. 

According to some recent family history by my father, our family ties back to a line of Viking kings. Instantly, my head is swimming with images of men in horned helmets ransacking helpless villages and plundering all the food and loot they can find. At least they’re very manly- there is something undeniably manly about having the blood of Vikings flowing through your veins. And to be related to royalty is pretty good, too.

Then my dad dropped another one on us: we can trace our lineage back to Charlemagne- the Charlemagne. For those who snoozed through Ancient History 101, Charlemagne was the king of the Gauls who was known for his Solomon-like wisdom and his prowess in battle. Oh, and did I mention he was giant for his time, towering benevolently over his subjects. More manliness! 

So I was thrilled to find out just how much awesome manliness resides in my family lines and in my DNA. Kings, warriors,… oh, and pilgrims are cool, too, I guess.

Keep Your Mind on What Matters During the HolidaysPosted by Administrator on November 30th, 2009

With Black Friday looming last week, I spent a significant amount of time surfing through ads, trying to find the very best deals on the presents I would get for my kids and my lovely wife. This inevitably led to scheming about how I would outsmart or outmuscle the early morning crowds to secure the perfect gift. Along the way, I found myself catching glimpses of the things I wanted, too, and hoping that my wife would pick the right one. Before long, I couldn’t even focus on Thanksgiving. I had bigger fish to fry, bigger deals to reel in. Yeah, yeah, being grateful is good and all, but, if I planned things out well enough, I could come home Friday morning with a bounty of the best presents. I would be a hero come Christmas morning, I mused. 

I’ll admit it here and now: I got sucked into all the things about Christmas that don’t matter. And it was ruining my holidays.

Luckily, my wife brought me back down to earth after Thanksgiving dinner in her forthright way. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was getting caught up in all of this so I could be the best gift-giver around. It had become a form of self-aggrandizement. Also, I was slipping in a few items that I really wanted- and maybe my kids would like them, too. Somehow, I had turned what was supposed to be an act of Christian love and appreciation into an act of selfishness. Funny how we do that sometimes.

So I rethought all my grand gift-giving plans. Like Scrooge and Charlie Bailey before me, I reconsidered what the true meaning of Christmas is. And I made a big attitude adjustment. I would not let the retailers dictate my holiday cheer. Rather, I would make my actions reflective of the Man we celebrate at Christmas. I thought about a neighbor of mine who has been unemployed for several months now and recently lost his car. I thought about others in similar situations. I thought about my wife and what would truly make her happy. And I resolved to do something- something real- to help these people and to somehow lift their burdens.

This is my new mission for the holidays. Anyone can buy a video game. But it takes real Christian love to give a real gift.

Family History Road Trip in Summer 2010?Posted by Administrator on November 25th, 2009

Thanks to last week’s family history blitz, in which we compiled literally hundreds of names from both my Hawaiian and Scottish sides and from my wife’s Scottish side, there is buzz going around about us taking a family history road trip next summer. Ideally, we would rent an RV and hit the road with my siblings and their families some time in July. We would drive straight through Arkansas, Tennessee, and then Virginia. Then we would probably head north into Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin before heading back west. Sounds ambitious, I know… and stressful and expensive and completely awesome.

Our longest road trip ever was moving from Utah to Virgina, pulling a small UHaul trailer full of our college stuff with our humble little minivan over the rolling plains of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa and finally climbing through the Appalachians to end up in Alexandria, Virginia. The fan broke on our radiator so we had to stop every few hours to let the engine cool down. We got a flat tire in Cheyenne. Worst of all, we had to listen to our kids’ preschool CD about a billion times to keep them placated. It was a challenge, to say the least. But some thing tells me this would be different.

We ant our family history to be a reality for us and we want to get more names- that’s our main motivation for going. We think that actually going to the places where our ancestors lived, we might unearth some new lines. More importantly, I think it will help our kids connect with their roots.

What do you think? Have you ever done some thing like this?

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