Genealogy

What Matters Most…             Commentary by Jim High

The branches of our lives, where we come from and who we are made of is something all of us have thought about at some time.  Many people spend countless hours and lots of money researching their past ancestors.  It is lots of fun, they tell me, like being involved in a real mystery story, which it actually is for most of us.

I was lucky; one of my distant relatives did all the research on the High Family Tree.  She published a book of over 12,000 Highs going back to the first one of us to come to America, Thomas High in about 1660.  I bought a copy of her book and easily traced back through the twelve generations that resulted ultimately in me.  A couple of times along the way I almost didn’t get to be here, because my some of my great, great, great grandfathers almost didn’t have children at all, or “heaven forbid” did not have a son to carry on the line.

Isn’t it interesting that most genealogies work their way backwards through the males.   But in those twelve generations from “old Thomas” to “old Jim” there were twelve mothers also, and every one of them has a genealogy.  This could get really complicated.  And it is, because those of us living today are the product of a vast array of people from the past.  We have some of all of them in us.  It makes us who we are.  I know about twelve generations of my Father’s family, but only three on my Mother’s side.  I’d love to know more; maybe I’ll find someone who’s written a book about her family, which is the only way I’ll know.  Doing the actual research is hard, time consuming and costly.  I’m going to pass on all that effort at this point of my life.

I was lucky in another way.  When I was growing up in the 1940’s, four generations lived in our house.  I never knew my great grandfather “Private” John Allen, a United States Congressman from 1885 to 1901, but until I was eight years old, his wife, my Great Grandmother lived in the downstairs bedroom.  Upstairs were my Grandfather and Grandmother, Father and Mother, Brother and Sister – we all lived together in that house.  I lived on there until I was the only one left – 61 years.  My brother and sister are still alive, but they had moved out long before my Mother died. 

One of my prized possessions is a photograph of me at three years old sitting on the living room couch next to my Great Grandmother.  She is reading to me.  That picture and four others taken by my father when I was three hang in my apartment.  They keep me grounded in a way.  I am reminded of where and who I came from and all the branches of my personal genealogy. 

It is a very moving experience to look at yourself in the mirror.  I don’t mean just a glance, but for a long time studying your own face.  It is even more powerful to look at yourself back when you were just three years old, with your whole life ahead of you.  My great grandmother, my grandparents, and my parents all set me on the right road, gave me a good start and I think they would be pleased with how I have turned out.  I know that I am.

What Matters Most however is the future, not the past.  Are you setting your children on the right road and giving them a good start?  And if you don’t have children of your own, are you doing this for the young people you come in contact with?  Our lives will all come to an end some day, but we can all live on in the lives of those who come after us.  Your future genealogy is way more important than your past genealogy.

© 2008 #6 Jim High can be reached at P. O. Box 467, Tupelo, MS 38802-0467