Family Ties

I've discovered recently that I can spend hours upon hours sitting on my ass in front of my computer staring at names and dates of dead people. I can look through pages and pages of US census records without ever getting bored. I've been researching my family history, and I have to say some of it is pretty cool. I've found out that my great, great grandad was a rounder and a dog! He divorced his first wife after knocking her up a half dozen times or more then married my great, great grandma and knocked her up a bunch of times. They divorced in 1876 then he moved back in for a little while and knocked her up AGAIN then left right after the baby was born. After he left, my great, great grandma donated most of her land, I'm assuming due to maintenance, to Olive Branch Baptist Church which was used by the church for the cemetery. The cemetery is where a lot of my family is now pushing up daisies. The interesting part for me is that she was never buried there in the cemetery she donated. Mary was buried, I think, in Garrison Cemetery. What's the dealio with that? Interesting . . . very interesting . . . What's really cool is that I found a copy of the land deed for it.

I've been thinking about my zeal for this research. Why am I bothering? Why does it matter who my great, great, great, great, great grandmother was and that she came from England? The more I think about it, the more I realize I'm a foreigner where I am. I wasn't born in this area nor was any of my family. I have no ties to this area other than my parents and sister. If I left Springfield, it wouldn't matter much to anyone else. I feel like I have no history, and that's what keeps me up until 5 a.m. staring at Ancestry.Com and other geneaology websites trying to figure out who begat who and when and where. I guess it's about identity and displacement issues. I bet a psychologist would hear cash registers ringing if I walked into his/her office. I've got issues . . . Nothing too weird though. I'm not consumed with anger or guilt directed towards my parents or anything like that.

Ronnie wants to hear about the tawdry. That's about as tawdry as I get. I am too busy to be tawdry. And now my head hurts from working so much tonight.

Later, Taters!