The Angry Young Man

I avoided work I brought home from the office last Sunday to work on my family tree. First, a disclaimer - I'm not a genealogy nut with those tacky family crest plaques you can pick up at Fisherman's Wharf hanging all over my walls. I just like to think about how I'm the end result of a journey that began somewhere over there, way back when, and each step along the way to ME, ME, ME is a unique life, a unique story. Who were those people? What motivated them to leave Europe and come to this god forsaken, distopic country? Once here, what inspired them to continue traveling west, slowly but surely, generation by generation? I think about the choices they made in their lives and how they reverberate down through the ages. Sometimes, I run into very distant relatives who are also putting together family trees and we can trade information, fill in the blanks, one branch to another. It's like a puzzle.

So, every few months, I pick up my family tree and stare at it for a while. My father's side of the family is very well documented back to the 14th century. If I wanted to dig up more on them, I'd prolly have to go to the UK and Sweden and pour over musty church records. No thanks. Same pretty much goes for my maternal grandfather's side. They were a bunch of norske farmers who settled Minnesota back during the Laura Ingalls days. For example, one day I found this obituary for my Great Great Great Grandfather -

Gulbren Paulsen Strom One of the Pioneer Settlers of the State passed away.
Gulbren Paulsen Strom died at the home of his son, P.G. Gordon of Minneapolis, December 31, 1916. He was born in Ovesla, Nordre, Norway, February 22, 1822 and grew to manhood there and at the time of his death was 94 years, 10 months and 22 days old. He was married to Olava Olson Gorder in 1847 and to this union three children were born. His Wife died in Stevens County and also one daughter. One daughter resides in Christiania, Norway and the son P.G. Gordon, with whom he has lived since 1891, resides in Minneapolis. He came to America the spring of 1868, coming over in a sailing vessel, and was three months on the voyage. They came to Rushford, this state, and resided there until the following spring. He managed to get a yoke of oxen and an old wagon and started for Morris, Stevens County. They suffered many hardships on the way as the creeks and rivers were full and there were no roads and bridges anywhere. Often the wagon box had to serve for a boat in taking the small children across. The nearest gristmill was at Alexandria 85 miles away and it took three days to make the trip. The price of flour was $10 per hundred. The first year they had to live in dug-outs or sod huts and their principal food was fish. In 1870 the railroad came to Morris and there was some work to be had. In a few years they had a part of the farm under cultivation and they were looking ahead for better times when the grasshoppers came and destroyed their crops for several years. When the wife of the deceased died in 1891, he moved to Pelican Rapids and made his home with his son, P.G. Gordon, who was engaged in business here. In May 1915, he moved to Minneapolis with his son and resided there until the end came. The deceased leaves 21 grandchildren and 19 great grandchildren. (Pelican Rapids Press, January 11, 1917)

My maternal grandmother's family has always been a challenge because that's where the hidden Indian resides. When my grandfather died in 2002, it was revealed that my grandmother was part Ojibwe. She kept it secret and took it with her to the grave. Finding this out was revelatory in a major way. It certainly explained where my olive skinned, dark haired, dark eyed self came from in a family full of British and Scandinavian blue eyed, blondes. Anyway, I had a major breakthrough with my grandmother's genealogy last week. I've pretty much narrowed down where the Indian resides by tracing everyone else back to a point before they arrived in the Americas - tough, as most came over in the 1600's. Last Sunday, I was able to verifiably trace my great grandmother's side back to the 13th century, to a Sir Thomas de Gyney, born in Suffolk in 1285. This excited me as the last name indicates French origins, which makes me wonder if his ancestors may have come over to England with William the Conqueror. I'm also apparently descended from a bunch of Plantagenets, but I'll have to spend some time verifying that information. Either way, my descent from Thoms de Gyney makes Queen Elizabeth II and me 20th cousins twice removed. Fah fah fah. See? Choices. We have a common ancestor whose offspring made choices that reverberate down the line - one made decisions that landed his or her descendants on the throne, another made decisions that landed my arse in Maison le Trou. All I can say is I BEEN ROBBED!

I shared this information with Elisabeth and Huntington, the other denizens of Maison le Trou and they immediately set about pissing in my punch bowl by pointing out that everyone is related to everyone else that far back, that lots of Frogs came into England after the conquest, that because I haven't turned up evidence of my descent from Sophia of Hanover I must give up my place in the Line of Succession, etc., etc. then, Huntington , who is super, super competitive, set about trying to out family tree me! You can try, Huntington Van Der Fah Fah, but you will fail in out fah fahing me, mang! I am King Fah Fah of Fah Fah Island. Plus, I'm cousins with the queen! Who are you cousins with? The queen's janitor? Yeaaaaah....