Those are
tough rooms to play only if you believe that spirits have agency to register
their displeasure.
Beginning a genealogical research project involves a certain amount of playing for duppies. There’s the time literally spent in cemeteries, yes, but there are other more haunting audiences.
There’s the expert
genealogical community – specialists whose knowledge base can be so very intimidating
when we first set out. Although I have
learned more than half of what I know about my family -- and the circumstances of
their lives -- from others, and am tremendously appreciative of their
generosity, I sometimes feel that the more expert among them are annoyed by my
ignorance.
Yet the people
who genealogist Renate Sanders calls our genea-friends are in many ways the spirits,
the practice audience for our blood relatives, which can be a truly hard room
to play. The distant cousins I’ve met through
genetic testing and genealogy Facebook groups have been easier to talk to than
the three living first cousins that I haven’t spoken to in decades.
The genea-friends have been
kind spirits, people upon whom we practice our family narratives, who help us
get it right, let us know when we’ve played the wrong chord.
When I feel I've gotten it right – can write about how my family lived and stayed in and left that Down Home place, I’m not sure my cousins will like or agree with my interpretation of our history. But I’ll feel good about how I've gathered and checked and vetted the information before it’s presented to them.
I'll be glad I lingered for a long time in a quiet place, listening to the critiques of the whispering dead and their living familiars.
