I certainly don’t know what any potential readers of these ramblings might do with their time, but, over the last few years, I have become something of a devotee of the PBS program, “Finding Your Roots,” hosted by Prof. Henry Lewis Gates, Jr.  I have found this program, which has run for ten seasons and a total of 106 episodes to date (early fall-2024), to be extremely interesting, as well as quite entertaining.  If you are familiar with it, please bear with me while I try to explain a bit about it to folks who might not be.

Each hour-long episode features two to four guests, usually fairly well-known people, and shows Dr. Gates presenting them with information which they hadn’t known about their ancestors, places of origin, occupations, etc.  Obviously, these guests have been selected, at least in part, because there is information about their ancestry about which they do not know and they wish to learn about it.  That is, after all, the premise of the show; Gates and his staff seek out what they can find out about the guest’s ancestors, reveal it to them on camera, and have some discussion and reaction to whatever they have found.   

Obviously, it isn’t uncommon for the guests to be at least a bit surprised by what the genealogists have discovered, as family stories are not always accurate (when they exist) and there is often much which has been forgotten, or simply not preserved within the family, or has been shrouded by the events of history, wars, plagues, persecutions, etc.  Thus, especially for those of us who enjoy mystery stories, or have an interest in historical and/or scientific research generally, there is a certain “thrill of the hunt” aspect which the show catches quite nicely.  Of course, the actual events discovered may not always be all that pleasant, as in the cases dealing with folks of Jewish extraction and the Holocaust, or those involved, on either side, with slavery in American history.

Now, while there are certainly many gaps in my knowledge of my family’s history, I believe that I do have a fairly reasonable grasp of sizable portions of it, and my sister (who has actually done a fair amount of pretty careful research using at least some of the available records and sources) knows considerably more.  I don’t wish to say that there have been NO “surprises” up my family tree, but there doesn’t seem to be all that much in the way of truly major (previously unknown) ones so far.  
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I am reasonably sure that some of my maternal ancestors came over from England on the Mayflower; that I am related to a number of the people involved in the Salem Witch Hunt of 1692, including at least one who was convicted and hanged; and that it’s possible (although almost certainly impossible to prove) that that “witch’s” husband MAY have been personally involved with the execution of Charles I of England.  In any case, some folks from that side of the family came west to Illinois (it’s said in a covered wagon, but I’m doubt that that’s documented, and I don’t have a specific date for that.  We do know that members of the family spread into North Dakota and Wyoming and/or Montana.  I also have reason to believe that some of my maternal ancestors were soldiers who fought on the “Patriotic” side in the Revolutionary War, etc., although I don’t know much about their actual involvement.

My father’s side of the family is less studied, as far as I know, but there are, apparently, connections back to colonial Pennsylvania and Virginia before the “closer” (and better established) connection to eastern Ohio, where family members lived in the Appalachian coal country.  There was at least one child born out of wedlock among this group, but there’s only the one, at least that I know of.  And, there are no KNOWN connections to anyone involved with the owning and/or selling of slaves on either side of the family which, of course, does NOT prove that such connections could not exist.  But, this is NOT intended to be a discussion of MY family history, so I think I’ll stop this diversion now and hope that I have established a bit of credibility as one who is interested in and has a bit (small as it is) of knowledge about genealogy.

What I have found most interesting in my watching of “Finding Your Roots” is what I would have thought would have been pretty obvious before I ever saw my first episode: that 1.) ancestry isn’t always neat, clean, clear and has, in many, many cases, been forgotten or distorted; and 2.) the reactions of the show’s “guests” (especially to what one might call “unpleasant” information which has been discovered by the show’s staff) are quite interesting, although I often find those reactions to often be quite confusing.  So, my real interest in writing this piece is to try to explore those two subjects.  So that’s where this is going.  If you aren’t interested in my thoughts on these topics, the rest of this is unlikely to be of much interest.  Maybe I’ll do better next time.

Somehow, the idea that ANY sort of history would (let alone should) be neat, clean, clear, and the like has always struck me as a bit naive.  Now, I’m not suggesting that it might not be pleasant if that was the case, but we ARE dealing with human beings, and the lives of human beings haven’t always (perhaps even often) been all that simple and straightforward anywhere or anytime in recorded history.  I should hasten to add that this doesn’t, at least to my way of thinking, tend to just be true of individuals, but is equally true of human institutions and organizations, as well.  

As I see it, the simple fact is that “Peoples is peoples,” as Pete, the Manhattan restauranteur, commented to Kermit the Frog in The Muppets Take Manhattan.  I suggest that that could well mean that they are subject to forgetting things, covering up things they feel unhappy about, not wishing to discuss things which are painful or embarrassing to them, etc.  Because of this, there would seem to be any number of reasons why “stuff” might just disappear from the family memory, especially when one considers that the vast majority of us living in the US have some sort of roots in one, or more, “Old Countries,” and communication, let alone transportation, was, not all that long ago, quite difficult, if not all but impossible, for many.  This would make the loss of connections with the family members left  behind not only possible, but likely.

We tend to forget that travel and communication have undergone a MASSIVE change in the last hundred years, or so.  We should remember that the telegraph is less than 200 years old and commercial radio available to the public is only about 100.  The modern idea of having essentially instant communication of words (printed OR spoken), let alone still or moving images from virtually anywhere around the world has happened within the lifetime of currently living individuals.  (By the way, the Internet was invented in the 1970’s, but not actually publicly available until the 1990’s.)  

This means that when most of our ancestors left wherever they came from there was little to no means of really maintaining any sort of meaningful contact with those they left behind, especially if they didn’t have a good deal of time and money.  And, the disruptions of political upheavals, wars, etc., made any sort of communication difficult even for those who had resources.

Then, when you consider that, while divorce, etc. was generally frowned upon in most social spheres, that didn’t mean that morals were, actually, any more rigid than they are today.  In fact, given the evidence brought out on Finding Your Roots, there are quite a large number of families which include one, or more, children who almost certainly (assuming that DNA is accurate) were not “fathered” by their mother’s husband (if such existed).  That fact, alone, would have provided an adequate reason for many people to have incorrect notions about their parentage and/or to have had that sort of information “forgotten” or simply not discussed even within the family.

Also, it’s highly possible (even without DNA testing) that when racial, religious, or ethnic lines were crossed in the production of offspring (and such lines WERE, on fact, crossed), there were even greater pressures to attempt to make sure that this information was NOT available to the general public at large, or even within the “family.”  Based on my casual observation of most of the episodes of Finding Your Roots, there is quite a large number of people who are at least to some extent of mixed race, and many of them didn’t know it prior to being presented the evidence uncovered by Dr. Gates’ team.

I should probably mention that many (although by no means all) of the specific cases studied are of African-Americans, and often involve people who had been held in slavery.  However, there are examples of “hidden” parentage involving other ethnographic/religious groups, as well.  Many such cases were, unsurprisingly, not preserved within the family histories.  This doesn’t seem surprising since the impact of “racial impurity” has been of considerable controversy since well before the creation of the United States.  I remember from my own studies of our history that it was sometimes said that “One drop of Negro blood is enough to make an individual a Negro!”  (I feel that I should point out that, if that is the case, then shouldn’t that magic “one drop” of blood from one racial/religious/ethnic group apply to other groups, as well?   Shouldn’t “one drop” of Caucasian blood makes one a Caucasian?; or Southeast Asian?; or Jewish?; or Native American?; or WHATEVER?)  Seems to me that it’s a pretty stupid sort of criteria in any case, especially in a country which has always claimed to pride itself on (at least until recently) having provided a “welcome” to people from across the world and of many different racial, religious, and ethnic types.  I suspect that very few of Americans can be truly called a truly “pure-blood” anything!

My second point mentioned the reactions of some of the “guests” to the information presented to them on the program.  It has often taken me by surprise that there seem to be a lot of people who appear to be embarrassed, if not outright ashamed, to discover that their ancestors may have done things which are not considered quite “proper” today; like owning slaves, engaging in criminal activities, having had children out-of-wedlock, etc. 

Now, I’m not going to suggest that discovering that sort of thing is something to celebrate.  On the other hand, while I am not aware of any of my ancestors owning slaves, I would not be surprised to discover that at least some of them may well have been involved in some sort of activities of which I would not approve.  I have no way of knowing for sure what these activities might have been, but (recognizing that “Peoples is peoples,”) it seems likely that at least some of them were probably not worthy of sainthood.  Basically, I would be surprised if my ancestors were any more (or unusually less) upright citizens than most others.  

After all, we of the U.S. have plenty to be less than proud of.  Our treatment of those we now refer to a “Native Americans” was (and still is in many ways) shameful for many reasons.  In our efforts to “civilize” them we did just about everything possible to destroy their culture, religion and society, which was perfectly satisfactory to them before we came with our “superior” knowledge (and firepower) to force them into our notion of what was acceptable and “proper.”  American attitudes about such things have always been a bit confusing, at least to me.

Consider this.  The actor, John Wayne, has been quoted as saying:

I believe in white supremacy, until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility.  I don't believe giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people ...  I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [the Native Americans] ...  Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival.  There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.

On the other hand, It’s worth noting that, in the movie, McLintock, when the local (Comanche) tribe was being corralled up for transport to a reservation by the government, the Comanche chiefs ask Mr. Wayne's character, G. W. McLintock, to speak for them at a hearing where they were appealing to be allowed to stay on their ancestral lands.  The speech he reads, supposedly created by Puma, one of the Comanche chiefs, goes like this: 

We are an old people, and a proud people.  
When the white man first came among us we were as many as the grasses of the prairie.
Now we are few, but we are still proud for if a man loses pride in manhood, he is nothing.
You tell us now that if we will let you send us away to this place called Fort Sill you will feed us and care for us.
Let us tell you this: It is a Comanche law that no chief ever eats unless first he sees that the pots are full of meat in the lodges of the widows and orphans.
It is the Comanche way of life.
This that the white man calls charity is a fine thing for widows and orphans but no warrior can accept it, for if he does, he is no longer a man and when he is no longer a man he is nothing and better off dead.
You say to the Comanche, 'You are widows and orphans, you are not men.'
And we, the Comanche, say we would rather be dead.
It will not be a remembered fight when you kill us because we are few now and have few weapons.
But we will fight and we will die Comanche.

It is said that this movie script "... was developed by John Wayne as a way for him to express his disapproval for how Westerns negatively represent Native Americans, ….”  

I confess that I do not understand how the same person can be responsible for the, personal quote of Mr. Wayne (the FIRST one above) and then have anything to do with fashioning (let alone performing) “Puma’s speech” in this movie.  I am forced to take these conflicting statements as proof that Wayne, like most people, was perfectly capable of having conflicted notions in his beliefs and statements.

So, what does all this mean?  I think it means that probably most humans aren’t perfectly consistent in their thinking and that, even if we wish it were not so, we should be neither afraid of (nor automatically approving of) the thinking, attitudes and beliefs of our ancestors.  I think that people throughout history have responded to all sorts of situations in what they thought (for whatever reasons they could come up with) were the best available way given the options they had at the time.  I don’t believe that slavery existed because some people set out to be evil, but because (given the ideas of the time) it seemed an efficient and practical solution for the desire for cheap labor, there were these “creatures” available, AND the “advanced learning” of the time argued that those “creatures” were not really “people,” but had been provided (by God?) to do the manual labor, etc. which they were “suited for.”  And much the same sort of logic (?) had been applied by many people to many other “not really quite people” groups throughout the world for centuries.

Do I find this rather appalling?  Yes, and I try to avoid engaging in such behaviors and practices.  However, I do not accept any guilt for actions which my ancestors (whom I didn’t know and over whom I have had no possible influence) might have engaged in, and which I disapprove of today.  And, I confess that I am sad that other people seem seem to feel that they are supposed to be “ashamed,” or “embarrassed” by actions taken by their ancestors who were (generally) long dead before they were even born.  I understand being sorry that those events happened, but NOT GUILT!

I am responsible for MY actions, not yours, or theirs.  I try to believe that “We are all children of the same universe” and deserve respect, fair treatment and a right to express our personal beliefs without censorship in any form, as long as they do NOT hurt other people, or require that other people agree with them.  And, I try to grant others the same treatment, provided that they, as it is said they say in Minnesota, “Mind their own damn business.”

Having got that out of my system for a while, I’ll try to come up with something a bit less diatribe-like in a couple of weeks.  Perhaps I’ll succeed, we’ll see…

🖖🏼 LLAP,

Dr. B