Family Genealogy

Genetics

Studying genealogy fascinates me. I suspect a lot more of our personalities are inherited than people are comfortable believing. I enjoy watching parents and children together and noting the similarities and differences in looks and mannerisms. When I was young, I heard that the male line can be traced back through the Y gene, which remains unchanging through the generations.

Don’t ask me why, but I assumed that meant since I didn’t inherit the Y gene I didn’t inherit any of the genes from the male line, just the genes from my father’s mother on the X gene. I’ve since learned that the only trait those genes carry is gender. The rest is a crapshoot. Genes mix and mingle into who knows how many variations.

My parents had three kids. None of us looks alike. One of my sister’s and my children inherited a bump on the bridge of my mother’s nose and no other features. My sister’s child looked very much like her (she looks like my father’s mother) in early childhood but developed more of her father’s features during puberty. One of my sons has tight curls. Many in the family have wavy hair—no curls like my son’s.

The Family Tree

My father’s family has been traced back to the mid-1600s when the first ancestor arrived from England and settled in Salem, MA. His house still remains as part of a historical tour. A later generation, a gentleman, owned lands in PA. Unfortunately, he was a British sympathizer and lost them after the Revolutionary war and moved to Canada.

One ancestor owned and edited a newspaper and was instrumental in helping Canada form its Parliamentary government. Maybe that’s where I get my love of writing from, though my mother’s father wrote a book that he self-published. My father’s branch of the family eventually moved back to PA and my grandfather settled in MA.

My maternal grandmother came from Nova Scotia. I know little of her or my other grandmother’s families. I have the history of my maternal grandfather back to my great-great grandfather, again nothing on the female side. America was a patriarchal society for at least two centuries. I wonder how much history has been lost in the assumption that the female line wasn’t as important as the male.