http://www.flickr.com/photos/dejavu66/7905624272/
Illness, car problems, and icy roads have kept me mostly at home.
As in other times of my life, this has left me plenty of time to reflect on how my situation puts me in a position similar to previous generations of women in my family.
Up until about 50 years ago it was common for the wife and mother to stay at home most of the time to tend to the house and home.
As those previous women would attest to I am sure, it is a mixed bag. Sometimes it is maddening. Sometimes it is a great relief to not HAVE to get out and GO!
My attitude will undoubtedly change in a few weeks when the green shoots and tender buds start to appear on the scene in greater numbers. But, for now being at home as a necessity has not been so awfully, well...AWFUL.
There is a rhythm that has been lost in the repose that used to go along with the winter season. I have always been one that was a bit too attuned to the natural rhythms of life than what this most modern of societies likes.
If it did not feel right or natural and felt against the grain in a major way, I had been encouraged to just "Get over it and go on." That is sound advice in most situations, and so I did.
But...
There is such a thing as knowing what you SHOULD be doing in accordance of WHO you are.
There is a great deal of treasure built into quiet times. Reflection, contemplation, self inspection.
There is a great deal of treasure built into reflecting on society too.
How does one compare one's self to society?
Most of that is determined by what you are taught.
But....
There is a thing. Heredity.
That is where genealogy has helped me to understand WHY I am the way I am more than anything else.
Maybe it is not so for everyone else, but for me it has opened a new door to understanding my character traits.
Why do I feel as though the life is sucked from my very bones unless I live near water?
Why do I have a proclivity to gusting winds and biting cold stinging my nose?
Why do I not feel healthy unless there is a deep grounding cold prompting my heart to blast my thick blood through my hearty vessels and give warming life to my extremities?
Why do I hold up in any 18 mile mountainous hike better than most in my hiking parties, even though I am in middle age and now overweight?
Why do I challenge any attempt to take my freedoms away from me as though my life blood were being mortgaged?
Why do I favor music created from strings and percussion more than any other?
As I have spent most of my life looking at how I was formed - the gene pool, the attitudes, the society, the experiences - I increasingly believe that so much of that was set forth as building blocks of what could be. And then my own will, knowingly or not, was what decided to pick up certain of those building blocks over others.
Genealogy is history after all. Our personal history. We are commanded to learn from history. Not to make the same mistakes made before.
Quiet time is needed to reflect on the steps to follow this command.
In an attempt to answer for my self the above questions on my personality I have gleaned a wealth of POSSIBLE reasons.
Always remember, after a certain point of going back down your family roots, most things just CANNOT be proved. So, here is where researching local and world history/social studies comes into play. Trying to find the world social climate helps you to guess at what things are most likely to have occurred and why.
Social norms change sometimes dramatically, and sometimes not very much at all in a short period of time. There is always a WHY. It just is not always so obvious.
One question has always driven me in my research, whether it be genealogical, scientific, historic, etc.:
How will this knowledge I find provoke a change in me and how will I then use it to change me and mine?
Along the way I have received great joy from poking fun at myself and supposed ancestors that have helped make up the fabric that was used to stitch me up in my mother's womb.
One of those stories can be summed up as follows:
George Hume 1698 - 1760
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY/2000-05/0959432220
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Goofy looking kinda guy isn't he?
Well....
He and his entire family, as well as Clan, (go research the history of Scottish clans...Its all very confusing and silly really. A medieval Jerry Springer show if you ask me!) get their Jacobite butts kicked in the Stuart uprisings to throw King George into the ocean, oh! I mean off the throne. In the process these upstarts and threats to the throne have all their titles stripped and holdings, properties, monies etc dashed away and many are imprisoned or sold into slavery in Barbados!
George, the one with the smart alec little smirk in the portrait above - gotta love that! - was pardonned his prison sentence on the condition he leave Scotland and never return! HA! Talk about burning bridges!
Now, there is dispute as to whether he came to the Virginia colony on his own, or if he pretty much was thrown in the bottom hold of a clipper ship and dumped at the first opportunity to say he was in the American colonies!
At any rate he lost NO TIME AT ALL once his cloth slippers hit the wooden dock or the muddy bank, whichever was the case in 1721!
1723-26 he was the Assistant Surveyor of William and Mary
College; 1726 Surveyor of Spotsylvania County; 1727-28 laid out Fredricksburg,
1729 was commissioned First Lieutenant in Captain William Bledsoe’s Company of
the Virginia Militia and served against the Indians, 1729 became receiver of
His Majesty’s Rates on Tobacco, 1730 Justice of Spotsylvania County, 1731
Deputy to the King, 1739 Vestryman of St. George’s Parish, Spotsylvania County
and Deputy Surveyor of Orange County, SIGH…… 1751 Surveyor of Orange County,
1755 Surveyor of Fredrick County AND had
the time to teach SURVEYING - to GEORGE
WASHINGTON.
We all know that Washington was an impressive individual, but how did he become that way? He had MENTORS! For a little bit more on Washington check this out.
I think my little Scottish George had a big axe to grind in the back of old King George.
I also think he saw this very promising Washington as a way to build up the next generation to overthrow some very wrong people. I am not saying that George Hume was the man behind the man of Washington - not at ALL.
I am saying that we all become a product of the people and events in our lives that mean the most. And sometimes, just sometimes, genealogy can give you some answers to the ultimate question one asks after EVERY family reunion:
"WHY DO THEY HAVE TO ACT LIKE THAT?!"
http://codexceltica.blogspot.com/2012/08/bring-on-barbarians.html
As a side note, but also a point worth mentioning: the Gaelic foundations of the name Hume (Home, de Home) - Uamh means a cave, a clan's home. The Home or Hume clan motto is A HOME A HOME A HOME. I find this very interesting since my six year old daughter is most concerned about home and what it means to create and hang on to a family.
The Home Clan Tartan:
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I think I need to make a cloak for my daughter from this and perhaps my son needs a kilt?!
Here are a few interesting links that may help your research:
http://www.averymiller.com/
http://www.engr.psu.edu/mtah/essays.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_surveyor
For now, I leave you with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSH0eRKq1lE#
