Personal Essay

Not many people may care about their family heritage nor their family tree. I've been thinking about it. I've been learning it. And I want more.

I was born in Kankakee, Illinois, in March 1989. Before we had our own home, my parents, sister, and I lived with my grandmother on my father's side in Matteson, Illinois and my grandmother on my mother's side in Richton Park, Illinois. We also lived in Peotone, Illinois. The summer after I had turned five, we had moved to Gary, Indiana, where I attended headstart/pre-school. As the school year was finishing up, my dad moved some of our belongings to a storage shed in Nappanee, Indiana. After school ended, we stayed at a friend's house in Nappanee for about a month or so until the people in our new house (a mobile home) moved out. In June of 1995, we officially moved in. This June, it will be sixteen years that we have been in the same exact house.

For the past several years, I have been interested in knowing the countries where my ancestors have come from. I have Irish, Dutch, German, American, Cherokee, and Norwegian in my blood. On my mother's father's side of the family, my great-great-great-grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. On my father's mother's side of the family, my great-grandfather was a direct descendant of the Vikings. When my dad told me about my great-grandfather, I told him that, apparently, it is not a good combination to have in one person: Indians and Vikings. You have the Indians that scalped people and the Vikings who burned villages. Who knows? Maybe my sister and I will start scalping people and burning villages. Although the both of us will not be doing that anytime soon. Probably never. My dad also told me before my sophomore year in high school that my grandfather's (his dad) parents directly came from Germany.

When I started taking German in my sophomore year of high school, my dad said that my grandfather would be proud of me. I found a few German songs and downloaded them onto my computer. Totally legally. So, I am able to sing along with them. Unfortunately, I haven't taken German in almost three years and haven't had anybody (at least in the family) to speak to in German. So, I have lost my German-touch. Oh, I miss speaking German!

I think that the reason why I loved the play Translations so much is probably because I am part Irish. At the end of the play, there was an Irish song called Dulaman which I have downloaded to my MP3 player and my computer. After seeing the play a second time, I told my dad that if I had ancestors that were in Ireland during the 1830s, it must have been hard on them because they would see the Irish names of streets and such be changed to English. Also, during that time, there was the potato famine that ran throughout the country which caused many people to leave and many others to die.

Last semester, I was listening to CDs for The Globe. One of the CDs was by Tia McGraff. At the beginning and the end of one of her songs which is titled "Two Wolves," there are Native Americans doing a chant. In it, she talks about "the proud Cherokee." When I heard that, I was so excited, and I knew that I had to get it.

Because I have been so into my heritage for some reason for the past few months, my dad and I have found songs in Native American and Irish, and maybe even Norwegian. Since English is my first language, it is already a given, so I can't include that in my collection of songs from my heritages.

I also like knowing my family tree. Unfortunately, due to someone on both sides of the family, I am not able to know this information. My paternal grandfather's side of the family disowned my paternal grandmother's side of the family, their own kids, and just by marriage and birth, the rest of us in the family. We have been disowned because my grandmother became a Jehovah's Witness since the Catholic religion (my grandfather's and most likely his siblings' and parents' religion) wasn't helping her on her path towards God. On my mother's side of the family, there is an uncle who will not allow anyone to see the family tree and most likely not let us have a copy of it.

I think that I might be the only one in my entire family - okay, out of my aunt and her family, and my uncles and their families, and my own family, and part of my mom's side of the family, and most likely everyone else from my dad's side of the family - that wants to take our family tree and our heritage seriously. My parents say that no one in the family has kept records of who married who, who was born, and who died. They also told me that they wish they could go back in time and create a family tree just because I want to put one together. My dad says that when I have a job and money, I can take the time to go on journeys like they do on Who Do You Think You Are? He says I would have to start with Chicago since that is where my parents were born. Too bad it's not a law that every single family has to have a family tree. That way each generation can add onto it when they have their kids and get married and their spouses would add their family tree to that one.

After having finally been able to come up with the money for ancestry.com, I was able to check the hints that were waiting for me. A few of them were relevant while the others were not. One example is my eight-year-old cousin, Sam, who was supposedly "born in 18-something." Not relevant because he's only eight! Check the year he was born! Last Wednesday, I was with Joe Springer to get more for my family tree. Unfortunately, he only discovered what I had already had on my tree. I really do appreciate him trying to help me, but now, I only see that we wasted a few hours on dead-ends, nothing relevant, and people I already have.

And now, it is back to the drawing board. Back to the old-fashioned way: Letters to my great grandmother and visiting the graves of my paternal grandfather and his parents. Within the next few months, my dad said that the four of us can go (for the very first time) to my paternal grandfather's grave so that we can get his birth and death dates, the names of his parents who he is buried next to, and possibly any more information there before I go online.

So, here at the end, I shall say that I want to create my family tree and to also know more about my heritage, whether that's by going online to Wikipedia and also listening to songs from my home countries.