THOUGHTS ON FAMILY HISTORY
It's often said that people who don't know history
are condemned to repeat it. There's a certain amount of truth to this, but sometimes family history is not viewed in
such a positive light. Even the name of the PBS series "Who do you think you are?" can be taken in a couple
of different ways.
By nature,
most people seem to have an interest in their family history, especially if they descend from a family that has lost all memory
of its origins. Before the computer information age, most Bratt descendents had no idea where the family originated
or what the old country was. They were a complete mystery. Where did they come from and what was that connection back
to New York?
Today, it's much
easier to research family origins. Programs like Henry Louis Gates' "Finding Your Roots" demonstrate how research
can be done, and the Internet provides all kinds of family history, accurate, half accurate, and inaccurate. Genealogy
is a kind of detective work but without much danger of being rubbed out, unless you meet up with someone who's mad at you
for having ancestors. But seriously...
At a minimum, family history makes it easier to remember national history. even world history. Sir Isaac Newton
does not seem so ancient when we realize that he lived at the time North America was being explored and settled by Europeans.
Rembrandt does not seem so foreign if your ancestors lived in the same city and got married in the church where he was later
buried. The American Revolution is more real when you know how it affected your family. Wars are more personal when you have
a picture of a family member who did not return, or were never exactly the same again.
The
best of family history is
(More to come.)