Heather Murphy | Balancing Our Family Narratives

Stories in Our Roots

Heather Murphy | Balancing Our Family Narratives

27 Oct 2020 • 15:00

SPEAKERS

Heather Murphy

Stories in Our Roots  00:03

Welcome to the Stories in Our Roots podcast. I'm your host Heather Murphy. In this podcast, we dive deep into how knowing the stories of our ancestors can make a difference in our lives today, discovering our family history is more than a hobby. It is a way to connect deeply with ourselves, those we love, and the world around us.

Heather Murphy  00:26

Hi, I'm Heather Murphy. Welcome to another episode of Stories in Our Roots. Before I get into my topic today, I'd like to remind you that I would love to hear what stories you have to share. What stories of your ancestors have you found meaningful and impactful to your life? I'd love for you to reach out to me through social media, or go to storiesinourroots.com and click on the feedback form and let me know if you might like to be a guest on Stories in Our Roots.

Heather Murphy  00:58

Today's topic was inspired by a part of my conversation with Tamara Hallo, in episode nine, this concept of imbalanced family narratives being passed down. And I actually had an experience with that this month. A couple weeks ago, I took out the FamilySearch Family Tree app and started exploring the different features that it had that I hadn't looked at for a while. And one of those was Map My Ancestors. And what this feature does is that if you have your tree in FamilySearch's database it will map where you are, and then any events from your direct ancestors around you. And so I pulled that up, and I looked at it. And I was really surprised to find out that one of my third great grandmothers was buried less than 30 minutes from where I live now. I didn't know that part of my family had lived in the area that I live now and I wondered why that was. And it goes back to that imbalanced family tree idea. My father's side of the family has very strong narratives. There's stories that have been passed down throughout the generations of these people who were willing to do hard things and how they cared for other people, and just really inspirational characters. But then my mom's side of the family, we didn't have that strong narrative.

Heather Murphy  02:29

My maternal grandmother has done a lot of family history research. And she is one of those women who knows everything about the family. And you can talk to her and she will tell you how we're related to different people and how this person in the family is related to that person. On Facebook, she often says Happy birthday and anniversaries to different family members. And then she will give the generations going back. So you know how you're related to that person. And even though she has done all this research, the family narrative that was passed down to me wasn't that strong from that side of my family. I thought about that this month. And I thought about why was that in my family? Why is it that on one side of the family, I would know where everyone lived and died. But on the other side of the family I didn't?

Heather Murphy  03:28

There are a lots of reasons. And I came up with a couple for me personally. First of all, my paternal grandparents had a different demeanor than my maternal grandparents. My maternal grandparents, my grandfather, he was in the Army, and it was just a much stricter family. Not as much laughter and entertainment type situation. Whereas my paternal family, there was more of that feeling. There was also more cousins, there was a stronger sense of that. Another reason though, as I looked more deeply at the family tree is that my grandmother because she so extensively researched her family I didn't pay much attention to that part of the family. My father's side was very well researched. So as an adult, most of my research has been on my maternal grandfather's line. So I knew a lot about my third great grandparents on his line because I had spent time researching them. But I didn't know very much about my grandmother's line.

Heather Murphy  04:40

And I found that really interesting as I thought about it about why I have this imbalance. And I realized in my own way I had said, well grandma researches that line. I don't need to worry about it. I can focus my energy somewhere else. But then I miss out I'm really getting to know those ancestors, because I just assumed someone else was researching them. And I don't need to. After realizing that I knew nothing about this third great grandmother that was buried so close to me, I decided that I would take some time to research her to learn more about her life. And then on a Sunday afternoon I made plans to bring some flowers and visit her grave because I had no idea how long it had been since another family member had visited her grave.

Heather Murphy  05:32

So Friday night and Saturday morning I spent time researching her. And there's not a lot of records easily available for her. I found her in different census records and I've found her death certificate and her husband's death certificate, and a little bit about when she was a child. And then I also learned that she had four of her children die when they were really young, two of them within about a week of each other. And I was able to actually find them on a mortality schedule, because they died a year before the 1870 census, and found out that they died of scarlet fever. So I was able to learn a little bit about her and at least spend some time sitting there and thinking about her, I realized there was still more to learn about her, I wasn't going to be able to research everything about her by the time Sunday afternoon came around, but I did my best.

Heather Murphy  06:34

Sunday came and it was so extremely windy. And I live in a semi arid part of Washington State and it's the beginning of fall, we haven't really had any rain yet and so when the wind blows, so does the dust. And I didn't think it was going to make for a very good trip driving on the freeway in the middle of a dust storm. So I sat at my kitchen table, and I thought about, okay, when can I reschedule this, because it's not going to happen today. And I sat there thinking about when I could work it into the next week. And then I had some thoughts that were from my third great grandmother Mary's perspective. And my thoughts at that time were, "I don't need you to go and visit my grave. I just want to be remembered. And so with these flowers that you bought to put at the cemetery, instead, why don't you think of me every time that you look at them, over this next week or two." And that was really touching to me. I didn't need to go to the cemetery, she just wanted to be remembered. How many of our ancestors want to be remembered, but because of the imbalanced way we look at our family, we're not remembering them?

Heather Murphy  07:57

 There's lots of reasons why this happens. For me, it was because my grandmother researched that line. And I wasn't thinking that I needed to spend much time to get to know those people. For other people, like several of my guests, they had a parent that wasn't involved in their lives, or a parent that didn't have good relationships with his or her parents and so there wasn't that really good connection within their first couple generations and so that family wasn't talked about. You can have hard things that happen in families and so you ignore the whole family line because of the actions of an individual. Sometimes it's just that the records are hard to access, that you have one family that lives in an area of the world, where records are really abundant, and you can learn a lot about them. And then you have another side of the family that all you can find is church records and you get that birth, marriage and death and it's really hard to find any information other than those dates.

Heather Murphy  09:03

Now, I think it's really important that we try to rectify those things, that we look at our family trees, and we try to think about, am I looking at my family tree in a balanced way? Am I honoring both sides of my family? And also, if you have children or grandchildren, how are you passing that narrative down to the next generation? So often we have our favorite ancestors or the ancestors that we've spent the most time getting to know their stories really resonate with us. But that doesn't mean that their stories are the only stories that can be a value to us and our family.

Heather Murphy  09:45

So we should try to correct this imbalance because first of all everyone deserves and wants to be remembered. And there's something that we can learn from everyone whether we have lots of information from them or little, whether they achieved great things in their lives, or if they made choices that we don't agree with. There's always something that we can learn from every one of our ancestors, whether it's how to have strength, or things to avoid, or how to be more compassionate with people when they make choices that we don't agree with. There's so many things that we can learn from all of our ancestors, and different ancestor's stories may impact you differently at different points in your life. You may have an ancestor that you really connect with but then later in life, you might have an experience where a different ancestor story is what connects with you at that time in life. And then think of your siblings and your children and grandchildren. Everyone is so unique, and everyone has their own struggles, their own way that they look at the world. And if you only pass down those stories that you choose to be most important, then you are not letting them connect with stories that they might feel are more valuable to them than the ones that you favor.

Heather Murphy  11:07

So how do we fix this problem? Because I know I'm not the only one that has it. And I know a lot of people don't even really recognize the problem that they may have. I didn't really recognize it until this month, when I was talking with Tamara and hearing her story and also realizing that other people that I've interviewed have had a similar experience. First of all, you need to examine your own biases. Look at your family tree and see if you know those people equally, if you know the stories. If you're married, do you know the stories of your spouse's family? And are you passing those down as well? Are you letting your children and your grandchildren have a full view of who they are and not just tilted to one side?

Heather Murphy  11:56

You can also acknowledge that it is easier to gravitate to those ancestors that you can find the most information about. But there are ways that you can at least spend time with those ancestors that you don't know a lot about. Maybe you do only have those few dates that you got from church records. But you can learn about history of that area, you can learn about the culture of that area, what was going on that they may have experienced just by living in a certain place at a certain time. There are so many ways that you can get to know your ancestors, or at least to understand better what their life experiences were by looking at records that may not necessarily name them.

Heather Murphy  12:45

Another thing to keep in mind is that even little stories can be meaningful. I think of Iris and how she talked about her grandfather, learning simply what his father's occupation was just one little detail. That really meant a lot to him, because he knew almost nothing about his father. Or Iris's mother telling her that she makes rice the way her abuela did. These little little pieces of our ancestors might not be much, but they can really be significant. As you look at your family tree, and as you talk about your family stories, and you pass them down, think about whether it is balanced, whether it honors all of your ancestors and all the stories that led to the life that you and they enjoy today. It's okay to have a favorite ancestor, one that you really connect with, but it's not okay to ignore some of your ancestors.

Heather Murphy  13:47

So this coming month, I'd like you to think about your family tree, look at it and see if there might be a part of it, or even just one ancestor, that you could spend some more time getting to know and honoring them and their place in your family. I'd love to hear from you and hear what new stories you can discover what new connections that you can make with your ancestors by striving to have a more balanced family narrative. Thank you for listening with me today. I look forward to hearing from you. And now that we're two months into the show on how to had a variety of guests. I'd love to have your feedback on what stories that you've heard, are most impactful for you.

Stories in Our Roots  14:33

Thank you for joining me today for Stories in Our Roots. Please help this podcast grow by subscribing, leaving a review and sharing it with your friends. If you have feedback or would like to recommend someone to share their story head to storiesinourroots.com and fill out the form. Thanks again for listening and I look forward to being with you again next week.