My children have always accused me of being an opportunist when it came to my heritage. If in the presence of a Southerner, I would claim my Southern heritage. If in a crowd of Yankees, Central Indiana was the family home I would speak to. As a child of a father who felt compelled to move every seven years, there were other available references too:
Texas … always a good call to raise my seven years in Central Texas when talking to a Texan, especially if it is about a business deal. Add to that the paternal family heritage of East Texas and to a Texan, I belong … even though I am long since gone.
Oregon … it’s the place I’m first to identify as “home”. My most formative years were there. I’m frequently adorned in Oregon State or Oregon gear. In a conversation about roots, if you ask first, that’s the location you’re most likely to get.
Washington … I’ll likely just say “I went to college there” but truth be told I lived in Eastern Washington for four and a half years and happened to go to college near where I lived.
Maryland / DC … a 10-month internship during college there qualifies me for the right to speak as if I know the place. I can claim a connection, if not the state.
California … this one is a bit of a stretch … I’ll say I lived there a short bit of which the “short” part is most true. My first gig out of college was in Southern Cal, but I soon moved on seeking a place where I could afford to live.
Kansas … though I would never call it my “home,” my 30 years there were by far the longest I lived anywhere. I married, raised kids, and grew my career there. There’s a lot to like about Kansas.
Nebraska … my living “the Good Life” came as a side benefit to my marriage to a native Nebraskan. I’m quick to adopt not only her home state, but her home county (Boone) and nearby town (Petersburg).
Family members provide other anchors too … Boston, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, Wisconsin, Napa Valley, the North Bay Area, Southern Utah … just to name a few.
So where I’m from, often begins with me asking “where are you from,” and how I can connect my life to that person from there.
Ironically, through the years one of the places I rarely mention when the “where y’all from” conversation arises is where I was actually born.
After college and an army stint, my dad, a Texan, was encouraged by an uncle to accept a business office role at a small medical college and teaching hospital in Davidson County, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville. My mother, a Hoosier, had landed at this small college to get her BSN degree and the rest is history. My older sister and I were born at the hospital before dad took his next of many hospital system jobs across the country and we left for Texas. Apart from a “roaring river” I had to jump across on my way to a pond behind our Tennessee home, I don’t remember anything about my two years there. To me, Davidson County was just the happenstance meeting spot of my transient parents and not a place I would connect to “where are you from” … until recently that is when FamilySearch.org informed me that my roots in Davidson County, Tennessee, are way deeper than I could have ever imagined.
In 1788, John H. Tucker was born in Hawkins County, Tennessee, a county bordering Kentucky, near Virginia, and northeast of Knoxville today. Tennessee would not be a state for another six years. By age 20, John had married Agnes Robinson and they had welcomed the first of four sons. They also at some point moved to Davidson County, Tennessee, where in 1820 my Great, Great Grandfather Rhoden Tucker was born.
In 1849, Rhoden married Rhoda Hughes, a South Carolinian, and the couple moved to Mississippi where their children were born. One of those, my Great Grandfather William Thorpe Tucker, however, returned to Tennessee, where on March 9, 1879, he married Samantha Melvina Atkins Hamner, whose Tennessee roots also ran very deep. Samantha’s parents had also been married in Tennessee in August of 1857, and both of her sets of grandparents in 1834 and 1835. Further, her maternal great and great, great grandparents had been married in Davidson County, in 1809 and 1781. In fact, her great, great grandfather is listed as “one of the 13 explorers to modern Nashville, Tennessee” and her great grandfather was born in the county in 1787, 173 years before me. Ironically, my younger sister who was born in Texas, was also married in Davidson County, Tennessee, in 1984, 203 years after the first “family” marriage there.
William and Samantha moved to Texas prior to the birth of my grandfather Rafe Tucker, breaking the deep Tennessee connection I never knew I had and starting my “Texas” heritage story.
So where am I from? I guess now if there’s not a better option to tell that connects me to you, maybe I should just start accurately stating that I’m from Davidson County, Tennessee, where my roots are at least 243 years deep.
Perhaps I should also work a bit on my Southern accent, learn the words to Rocky Top, and visit there sometime.