Bits and Pieces of History

Every once in a while I continue to find bits and pieces of Family history. Words written on the back of old photos that once made no sense, names that had no connections to anyone… just a note that meant something to someone years ago… and than a single strand brings something to light. A name, a place… real or simply a wishful coincidence… who knows. Old scribbling on old photos, old stories remembered only in part, a dozen pieces of a thousand piece puzzle maybe fitting together. Who knows. Perhaps another isolated piece with only a thread of a connection. One branch of the family tree seems to have something to do with Monaghan….Ireland. I remember the Irish part of the bloodline being talked about… Monaghan is a county in Ireland. Lots of first names associated with family passed down over the years…James, Joseph, Sarah, and Emma. There seemed to be some kind of tradition to name children after a relative once or twice removed, so that the name could live on. I’d heard about family coming from western Pennsylvania and the deep south. Maybe another piece to the puzzle, maybe nothing. I like the living to 70 years old part… I was told that the family had a long history of a good long life… although that seemed to skip my parents generation. Maybe I’ll just pay the price and try the ancestry search and come up with a few more pieces to the puzzle. We’ll see. Some old photos sure bring up questions…

There’s always the vague bits and pieces of random memory that come to mind… sometimes things you heard when you were very young… things your parents or grandparents told you. Than there’s the other things that happen to you… like going someplace for the very first time, but you know that somehow you’ve been there before because you know what’s around the corner and recall vivid details about something that you’ve never seen or experienced before. Than there’s that very intense special feeling about places or old photos that you just can’t let go of because there is just something about it that draws you to it… again and again. Like an inherited memory that gives you hints of something or vivid recollections of a time before yours. Like going to a battlefield and an unconscious recollection spills over into the present and is so compelling that you can feel the fear and smell the smoke of the gun powder. So can thoughts or memories be passed down through the generations… maybe hidden in that 90% of the brain that they say we don’t use. Who knows… But there is something to it that can’t be explained away. I’ve been to places that history indicated were more intense and compelling… like Gettysburg… and it’s interesting but nothing special to my inner being. Than gone to lesser battlefields like Yorktown and had some kind of a personal immersive experience that physically touched my thoughts and sense of smell, taste, and emotions. Something is there, maybe calling from the past to make a connection to the present… isolated random impulse of thoughts or feelings jumping past the years to a somewhat hazy consciousness…sometimes vivid… igniting one or more of your senses outside the present. Seems a bit scary, but I guess we all have things like this happen… or perhaps not. Maybe looking for family history is an effort to complete or better understand these connections, thoughts, and feelings. Maybe time will tell.