Witnessing History - A Future President

This week, I decided to document my personal “Witness to History” for #52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. 

I witnessed history in a small way. In early 2008, Barack Obama planned a rally in Minneapolis. The race was still undecided - would he get the nomination, or would Hillary Clinton? At the last minute, I decided I wanted to attend, so I ran over to Obama headquarters at lunchtime to get the free tickets — except they were all gone. I was told I could attend if I volunteered. So, I signed up to volunteer, along with signing up my son Eric. (I didn’t ask him first, but he was okay with it.)

The following day, we drove to Target Center. We came in from the west side, so we had no view of the crowds that had started lining up very early in the morning. The lines continued to grow - the doors didn’t open until 1:30. It was a typical, frigid Minnesota day. Eric and I were assigned to staff the door to keep people out and check tickets as they filed in. It was a fun job - we saw several “famous” people like R.T. Rybak, David Plouffe, and other local Dems. The crowds were cold, excited, and very well-behaved. 

We checked tickets and kept the lines moving when they opened the doors. Then, we were told to grab seats. We ended up sitting up pretty far from the stage, but Target Center was packed - some 20,000 people. And Obama didn’t fail the crowd. It was amazing!!! When it was over, we were asked to come backstage and get a group photo of the volunteers. So we gathered and took a picture. We started seeing guys in suits with those tell-tale earpieces and the pins on their lapels. What was going on?

And then it happened - Barack Obama himself walked into the room. He gave a short little thank you speech and shook our hands. I got a couple of pictures which I’m sad to say have long ago disappeared on an old phone. Eric and I were both excited to have shaken the hand of a future president (we were sure of that by then.)

Many of the news reports talked about the youthfulness of the crowd. And yes, there were a lot of young people there. But what I noticed was the crowd’s diversity - all ages, all races and nationalities, men and women. There were veterans, men in uniform, whole families, and senior citizens with walkers. And they all had something in common - an excitement over being there and sharing a fantastic, positive attitude. It was a wonderful day for all.

 And that was my Witness to History.

ORIGINS

 #52 Ancestors in #52 Weeks

This week’s topic for #52 Ancestors in #52 weeks is Origins. It’s such a broad topic that I’ve struggled with it. So, as a lark, I asked ChatGPT to write “a genealogy-related blog post on the topic of Origins.” AI spit out some interesting, generalized paragraphs, but I liked the one titled Unraveling the Threads.        

“The very essence of genealogy lies in uncovering origins - the origins of individuals, families, and communities. Each person is a culmination of countless tales woven together, stretching back through time. Understanding these origins is like assembling a grand puzzle, where each piece reveals a unique story and contributes to the broader picture." (1)

 My Origins

I spend a lot of time working on other people's family puzzles and don’t spend as much time working on my family puzzle as I’d like to. But today, I thought I’d start by looking at my origins as estimated from my DNA. Ancestry says my origins are: 

• Eastern Europe and Russia                     22%
• England & Northwestern Europe          22%
• Germanic Europe                                    19%
• Scotland                                                    18%
• Sweden & Denmark                                  9%
• Wales                                                           5%
• Ireland                                                         3%
• Baltics                                                          2%

These estimates are all borne out by the paper trail except for the Sweden & Denmark percentages. I’m not sure where that came from. Perhaps some Vikings who encountered my County Durham or Scots ancestors? The paper trail says:

• Parents - both born in Illinois
• Grandparents - two born in Iowa, one in Illinois, and one in Eastern Europe.
• Great-grandparents - four born in Eastern Europe, one born in England, one born in Ohio, and two born in Illinois.
• Great-great-grandparents - eight born in Eastern Europe, two born in England, two born in Scotland, and four born in Illinois
• The Welsh comes from a 3rd great-grandmother, as likely does the Irish — which may come from both a 3rd great-grandmother and a 3rd great-grandfather.

 I have only one line, my maternal grandmother’s line, that was in the U.S. before 1870. They stretch way back, starting in southern Illinois and going back to Kentucky and Tennessee. Before that, they were from North Carolina and Virginia. All Southerners except for my Denman line, which may have come from New Jersey originally.

 I have ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War, Revolutionary War patriots and soldiers in the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk War. I have religious ancestors and ancestors who made moonshine on the Sabbath. I have Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and Catholics. I have a variety of ancestors. But one thing that is interesting to me is that my ancestors were either farmers (or ag labs) or coal miners (or both in the case of my maternal grandfather). There weren’t any other occupations in my direct lines that I’ve uncovered.

 As I continue to work on the family puzzle pieces, I hope I can honor my ancestors by telling their stories. No matter how simple and common their lives were, they all had one thing in common — they survived long enough to have a family and continue their line from their origins to the present.

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^[1] OpenAI. (2024). ChatGPT [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 1 - FAMILY LORE

Family lore is like that old game of telephone. It gets passed on in bits and pieces, and it ends up garbled and bearing no resemblance to the truth. Of course, that’s IF it gets passed on at all.

My family didn’t pass on a lot of tales. We weren’t close to most of the family on my mom’s and my dad’s sides, so maybe we missed out on the tales. But I remember hearing three pieces of family lore when I was younger. The first was that the family came west with Daniel Boone, the second was that someone in the family killed the last Indian in southern Illinois, and the last was that one of the relatives was a forest ranger in the “Old Country.” 

Proving family lore can be complicated since it’s often untrue. But sometimes, there are bits of fact buried in the lore. Take the story that our family came west with Daniel Boone. As near as I can tell, it's not true. But a couple of things may have led to the story. First, several family members followed Daniel Boone’s trail into Kentucky. As far as I can tell, none came into contact with Daniel Boone. Some Quaker relatives traveled west from North Carolina but have no known connection to Daniel Boone’s Quaker roots. 

My 3rd, 4th, and 5th great-grandfathers were named John Rains and traveled to Tennessee. There was a famous Tennessean, an early settler of Nashville, and one of the “long hunters” named John Rains. Although both Rains families originally came from Virginia, I’ve not yet found a connection. Perhaps past families confused the “famous” John Rains with our ordinary, hardworking farmer John Rains. This confusion might explain how the family lore developed. 

As far as the rumor that a family member killed the last native American in southern Illinois, that’s one story I’m happy to say I’ve found no proof of. I do have family who arrived in early Franklin County, Illinois, but by the time they arrived, the Native Americans had already been driven off. There were a few stragglers that crossed through the area. But there are very few mentions of encounters and no mention of killings. I have several relatives who fought in the Black Hawk War in 1832. Perhaps the tale developed from a war story yet to be discovered. 

The last piece of family lore I’d heard was that one relative was a “forest ranger” in the mountains in the "old country". I’m still trying to track this one down. I have a couple of lines who may have lived in more mountainous areas in Austria and Czechoslovakia. But I haven’t researched enough to find their jobs before they immigrated, and I’m not even sure what the term “forest ranger” means. Once in the United States, most were coal miners, not farmers or timber workers. 

Family lore often gets people interested in the lives of their ancestors. Proving or disproving it is often challenging, but the research can be fun.