I’ve written before about the many ways I’ve tried to get my family interested in learning about their ancestors. Swedish Death Cleaning was the key for one of my relatives who had recently purchased a new home and was needing furniture – along with the sewing machine cabinet went great grandma’s hand made doilies, a thread chest with great great grandma’s wooden sock darner and several homemade quits and afghans. I’ve helped several relatives apply to lineage societies and although they gained membership, I was disappointed that the result wasn’t a larger interest in learning about other ancestors. Although I never tried this trick, I did contemplate hiding cash in a book I wrote about three generations in one line thinking that if the receivers got that far in the story, they would like the extra reward.
What occurred last weekend was unintentional and what made me come to the conclusion that making a connection has to evoke a personal passion in the living; one that you might not even know exists.
We had a family gathering that was unexpected – the adult kids happened to just show up at our house at the same time. Since I had been hard at work checking relationships to see if I could qualify for a new society, I made a note of where I was in the pedigree and then joined the rest of my family. While we were all catching up on careers, shared friends and the state of the world, I mentioned I was confirming relationship to Madog ap Maredudd, Prince of Powys, who was the last prince of all Powys, Wales. I certainly didn’t expect the response I got from one of my children…”He’s a real guy?! I always thought he was made up.” I replied that Madog was indeed real and his grandfather, Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, was widely regarded as one of the most just kings who revised Welsh law making inheritance fairer for those that were not rich.
The response from my kid, “Wow, I didn’t think the guy was real.” I asked both kids where they had heard of Madog. Evidently, he had been mentioned in Madeleine L’engle’s Wrinkle in Time series. Turns out, the protagonist in the series discover that there is a lineal relationship and by learning about a treacherous incident in which Madog’s brother was involved in, saves the world from destruction. So, my adult kids were interested in how Madog was their 23rd grandfather.
No way I could ever predict a science fiction novel they read in 4th grade would light a genealogical fire in them two decades later but it did. We live in a very strange world, indeed.