The Finding Your Roots Effect

The “Finding Your Roots” Effect

By Jeffrey A. Bockman - April 2019

Even as an experienced researcher I enjoy watching “Finding Your Roots.” In part because of the Been There, Done That, Found That, Know Them, and even Related to Them moments.

However, seeing the guest’s emotional response to discoveries or circumstances faced by their ancestors got me thinking about my own family in a different way.

The show often looks for traits and similarities between a guest and their ancestors. I have noticed some of these in the past, but it got me thinking about it even more.

Too often when we have solved our own or another person’s research problem we just move on to the next step (found a new parent now we need to find theirs). When you are doing a jigsaw puzzle you do not celebrate the little successes, you just move on to the next piece until you are done. Genealogy is a lot like working on a jigsaw puzzle that you bought at a garage sale. It has both missing and extra pieces.

The first time that I really felt emotional while researching was when I first came across my father’s Social Security Death Index entry. The other emotional experience was on a business trip one evening in 1996 while looking at the Statue of Liberty from Lower Manhattan. My grandmother Katherine Kaps left Austria (now Slovenia) and came thru Ellis Island in 1910 heading to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to join her sister. That night I wondered what kind of life she was expecting to find here and then feeling sorry for her because things probably ended up a lot differently. Immediately after the birth of their forth child, her husband Alvar Bockman left them. She ended up working and raising four wonderful children all by herself.

While growing up I never heard her or any of the children ever really mention Alvar. I was 15 before I found out that he had left when my father was five years old and had not died as I had thought. After many years of research, I eventually found out that Alvar had changed his last name to Anderson, left another family in Michigan, and then died “Never Married” per his death certificate. Fortunately he kept his birth date and place.

After finally finding his parents and learning about Alvar’s early life I had to reexamine my feelings toward him, at least a bit. Alvar was born on a banana plantation between Bluefields and Rama in what is now Nicaragua. To avoid the civil strife and political turmoil in 1893 his parents took the then two and a half year old Alvar back to their homeland of Denmark. Alvar and his mother Alva lived with her parents while his father, Theodore, returned to Nicaragua. The following year, after even more unrest, Theodore relocated to Mobile, Alabama and started a plant nursery.

Alvar lived with Alva’s brother and his family when Alva came to Mobile. Theodore went to Denmark and brought the five year old Alvar to Mobile, finally reuniting the family. Six months later, with the nursery business not being very profitable or satisfying, Theodore decided to go to Bocas del Toro, Columbia (now Panama) to try and get back into the banana business. Unfortunately after six months he was bitten by a mosquito and died of malaria. A short while later Alva and Alvar returned to Denmark.

Alvar was nine years old when he started attending a boarding school (Magleby School on Mon) far from his family. He then went into an apprentice program, Looking back, he spent very little time in a “normal” family situation and less than a year with his father when he was old enough to really remember him.

While I don’t condone his behavior, I can understand that maybe he felt that he didn’t need to stay and be a father since he never really had one. Fortunately for me, his son, my father was just the opposite.

I often see traits and similarities that I share with my ancestors. Theodore was a successful entrepreneur at the beginning of the banana business. However he was not a successful manager of the nursery. Success often depends upon being in the right place at the right time and taking advantage of the situation. I see similar traits in other ancestors and myself. The skills and attitude needed to be a trailblazer, entrepreneur, or leader are vastly different than those needed to be a manager. I think that my dad and I inherited the travel bug from Theodore, who crossed the Atlantic at least 5 times before 1896. Hiram Demary, a traveler on my mom’s side grew up in NY, traveled the US and went to Europe with a Circus. He also went to Colorado territory and help to make it a State, with trips back to Chicago.

Hiram’s daughter also traveled and was a well known artist & an early photographer and President of the Chicago Camera Club.

Genealogy and Family History has grown from just collecting names, dates, and the places to now including:

· Photos – hopefully identifying them

· Documents & Correspondence – hopefully preserving them

· Stories about the people’s life and events – what makes them Them?

· DNA to help both verify the research and provide new leads.

Maybe the next step is writing about how we, their descendants, feel about them and what they did or didn’t do. We need to remember to look at their actions and sayings in the light of the time period in which they occurred.

While we might not have made the same choices nor done the same thing as our ancestors, we need to remember that if ANYTHING WAS DONE DIFFERENTLY then there is a good chance that we would not exist.

It is great to change the future but as much as we might like to change history, it is not a good idea.

Links:

Finding Your Roots - https://www.pbs.org/show/finding-your-roots/

www.JeffBockman.com

Jeff is the author of “Give Your Family A Gift That Money Can’t Buy / Record & Preserve Your Family’s History” - www.Alenjes.com & Family RootsPublishing