So, in thinking about who influenced my love of history, the first name that came up for me was James Michener. His style of historical fiction spoke to me and has informed how I look at the world in many ways. This connection may run more deeply within my DNA than I could have ever imagined.
I consistently get taken aback when serendipitous events coincide. My favorite Michener book was Chesapeake. Spending a bit of time asking myself why this book specifically amongst his many, I found genealogical and historical answers. Chesapeake, like all of Michener's books, begins with a place, city, state, or country. While this sounds simple, Michener proceeds to teach you the history, through the eyes of fictitious and historical characters, of a place from it's beginnings to the present. This book begins in 1500's Virginia along the Chesapeake Bay area with the native population. If you have read any of my previous posts on my 7th great grandfather (William Taptico lineage), who was the last "chief" (Americanized name) of the Wicocomico tribe (which ceased to exist after Taptico's death in 1719), you know Michener was writing about the very region of my family heritage, that I knew nothing about when reading this book. I traveled, back in 2003, to the specific area where my ancestors lived, not far from the Pawmunkey Reservation of today. Mostly open fields, undeveloped, I walked silently and wept. I don't know why I'm such a sap, but I have learned to own it over the years and not be ashamed.
I had a similar experience in Lisbon at a monastery and feel I need to delve into that research because I have suspicions there is a connection to the two. Yes, I'm crazy! We're not quite there DNA wise, but I did have a Iberian peninsula connection which makes sense with all of the probable invasions to the Chesapeake area from early Spanish and Portuguese ships. My test proved the Taptico lineage by matching the exact chromosome at the exact location on that chromosome to many of the male direct descendant alive today and silenced all the controversy that permeated a long fight within the Tapp family. A large contingency, wanting desperately to be descended from British white ancestors. And, believe me, historians of the past used documents within early VA records to try and fit Taptico into being a British man given an honorary "king" title from the Wicocomico tribe. Believe it or not, some still refuse to acknowledge the native lineage even with the striking DNA before them. But...I digress...
In 2000, my journey into genealogical research began to devour my thoughts most relevantly when my grandmother was dying. I became consumed with longing for who I was and whose lives and histories came before me. Couple this with my life long pull towards historical study and you get a meaningful lifelong passion personified. When I analyze my other historical fiction author, John Jakes, I continue to find not only genealogical parallels, but historical pulls as well. John Jakes mythological character, Phillipe Kent, has a family genealogy that is followed throughout many volumes, who is a bastard of a poor French woman and an English Lord. I am a bastard and this story melded my fantasies of a similar story for myself as I knew nothing about the father that abandoned me. Phillipe begins his journey by searching out his father, just as mine did in 2000. Phillipe was disappointed in what he found and because of the chaos that ensues jumps on a ship to Boston. In 1989, I left the south behind and moved to Boston to start a new life. Phillipe ends up having his life, and the lives of his lineage, entwined with American history. The characters in american history that touch the fictitious
What led me to Michener, after Jakes, was Jakes treatment in his verse of gays, slaves, and lower class citizens in, what I viewed as, a very prejudice manner, but at least he had these characters. Jakes first volume was published in 1974 (I didn't read them until later). Michener wrote better and seemed to be far advanced for his views on progressive ideas, yet avoided the characterization pitfalls I found in Jakes works as far as I can remember. They were products of their times for sure.
In the midst of all of this came Roots! My southern history classes bored me to tears when discussing the Civil War era. Why? Dates, battles, generals, deaths, statistics was the focus. Seeing the mini-series Roots changed everything. I avoided the period and focused on American history before 1850. Roots made me loathe any study of the Civil War because it was fake to me! No one wanted to talk about slavery, then lynching, then human rights. But, you could talk about the history of the "Civil War". Last year changed everything for me. I went to a conference on...."slavery and abolition", yes, not the Civil War. That conference impacted me just the way reading Michener and seeing Roots did.
Historians of this period are doing profound work today! I can't say that enough! It's an exciting time, but it's also a difficult time. Why? It will require acknowledgement that this country has done horrible things for all the wrong reasons, but it is our history and we must acknowledge it, learn from it, and make sure we move forward with reverence for what that knowledge has taught us, AND continues to teach us. Never forget!
While the historical field is exploding, so is the time for the genealogical field to walk hand in hand. There is so much to learn from one another. Slavery made genealogy difficult. Genealogy relies heavily on documentation, but always searches for the oral histories, which take work to meld into source material. This is the time to record those histories in the black community. There are still people who are alive that have stories to share about their parents or grandparents who were slaves. There is another part of history that is not discussed much that I would like to see more focus on, culture shaming. In the early stages of immigration in the very late 1800's on through to today, it was the norm to withhold pride of your heritage. Many first generation families who grew up in the 50's through the 80's were led to believe their heritage was un-American (there is a resurgence of this happening today and it must be resisted). Languages were not passed down, traditions, if passed down, were kept within the family, feeling shame at sharing their traditions with outsiders, etc.. We all loose, heavily, with this lack of reverence for heritage and history.
I know this post is turning preachy, I'm sorry, but this is how I write posts, going with the flow of feelings. We are at a point where we can follow a path of admiring, recording, and documenting truth in all its dimensions. THAT is exciting to me, but it is frightening to those who are entrenched in deception. This is what happens in regimes. We have a choice: we can embrace the difficulty of the past, reshape the future, and follow the difficult, bumpy road of uncertainty OR we can allow our voices to be silenced, chose not to get involved, chose to look the other way, WHICH is so much easier. What shall we do? For now, I'm going to study history, even if I can't make money doing it, and seek truth.
So, back to Michener's genealogy. Without exhuming his grave, I must.....find....his....parents!
My musings for the day!
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