I watch a group of women at my dinner table logging on to a genealogy app, then finding other women in the country club dining room and saying things like, “We are 8th cousins twice removed!” At this gathering, where we all trace our lineage back to Patriots of the American Revolution, it does seem likely to find some kin folks.
Another woman eating with me asks for the story of my heritage and I explain, “I grew up not really knowing where my people came from, so when my kids had to do those family tree school projects, and they wanted to know ‘what are we?’ I would shrug my shoulders and say, ‘As far back as anyone can go, we’ve just been rednecks.’ ”
They laugh at that one, so I tell another story. “When I took my daughter to David Lipscomb University in Nashville for her freshman orientation, I was standing in line waiting to go in to the parent’s luncheon. Not knowing anyone, I joined a group of women from Birmingham in front of me, and they invited me to fill their table. I took the seat at the end of the table, and they asked me where I was from.
“ ‘New Jersey now, but I grew up in Alabama.’ The woman at the other end of the table asked me where in Alabama. ‘A little town you’ve probably never heard of called Vernon.’ She grinned and said she had heard of it. Her mother was born there. ‘Who was your mother?’ I asked. The other women at the table were swinging their heads back and forth like watching a tennis match as we talked.
“ ‘Elwanda Hankins,’ she answered, and I squinted my eyes. How many Elwanda’s could there be in Vernon?
“I come back with, ‘My father was Olen Seay, and his mother was Ellie Mae Seay.’ She threw her head back to gasp and laugh at the same time.
“ ‘My grandmother was Susie Belle Hankins, Ellie’s sister.’
“ ‘Oh, Good Lord, your grandmother was my Aunt Susie Belle?’ We got up to meet half way and hugged.
“She said, ‘My Mamma always told me I had a cousin who lived on a cranberry farm in New Jersey.’ And I told her, now she’s met that cousin in the flesh.”
After telling that story, I spend the rest of the dinner party musing about heritage. Why at this later stage of life has it become interesting? I grew up in a town where you could hardly throw a rock and not hit a cousin; I never gave much thought to who my people were. I did start to feel a little curious as an early adolescent watching “Roots.” I got a vague sense I missed out on something other Americans had. I did not know how my ancestors got to where I lived. I had no stories about my great-grandma arriving at Ellis Island, no ethnic foods that spoke my heritage to the world. So, I convinced myself at the ripe old age of thirteen it was less important where I came from and more important where I’m going to.
I know more of the story now, thanks to my father’s research, and I find it fascinating in ways my thirteen-year-old self would never understand. I like to think we are all cousins if we go back far enough. My Dad had a friend named Bill Hicks who used to say, “Last names began to change after Essau sold his birthright. Before that, we was all Hicks.” I think Bill’s onto something. Say there are 145 or so generations since modern man, or Noah’s flood, (take your pick). Even if we had no common ancestor since then, we are at least approximately 145th cousins. I’m not shooting for accurate science here, but hey, since we have 99.6 percent identical DNA, don’t you think we are probably kin? I’ll do my best to be a good cousin. How about you?
Your turn: How into your heritage are you? Do you have stories to share about your ancestors?
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