Saturday, December 3, 2016

My Hometown - When Daughters Ask - Part 3 of 3


My Hometown
When Daughters Ask
Part 3 of 3

Silver Dollar City, Thanksgiving 2016
Allison King, Annette Lamb, Arrion Rathsack


As my wife, Nancy, our daughter, Annette, and I discussed the ‘eighth-grade yearbook’ that featured Nancy’s mother, Ruth, as a seventh-grader, and my father, Pete, as an eighth grader (the only one, actually), our discussion also involved the younger brothers and sisters of each as we looked at the photos and pages about the other classes in the one-room country school. This brought up another important aspect of talking about your family history with your grown children.

Each child will have different memories about relationships with older members of the extended family as well as different cousins, perhaps. Annette pointed out, for example, that she had memories of interacting with aunts and uncles in our hometown that her younger sisters didn’t. We only visited the hometown a few times a year, perhaps monthly, in her early years, of course, but by the time the two younger sisters were old enough to remember, we had moved out of state and hometown visits were no more than once or twice a year, if at all in any given year. Conversely, on those later years trips, Annette was out on her own, not with us, so the younger sisters knew many cousins that Annette never really got to know well.

So, my point here is to remember that each child will have different interests, and disinterests, based on their own experiences with various portions of the extended family - in addition to there natural interests in one aspect or another of family history study… at the point in there life when they become interested at all… if they even do. As for our girls, I’ve already mentioned Annette’s interests. The youngest, Arrion, and her husband, travel to Europe regularly, so she has become interested in the ‘way back’ parts of our family history. In contrast, Allison, the middle one, is really the most connected to the living relatives, keeps in touch with many of them, and likes to visit them, when possible. Different strokes for different folks, so to speak.

I would enjoy hearing your comments about how your next generation has reacted to and become involved with your family history studies and research.


Families are Forever! ;-)

2 comments:

  1. Well done.
    My family has no history

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, my, Martin. How can that possibly be? You have parents, they had parents, etc. It is there, even if you don't know it... correct?

    ReplyDelete