What do you know of your family history?

My immediate family is pretty small and to be honest, we aren’t very close anymore. On the outside we looked like the typical nuclear family: my parents got married in their twenties, bought a house in a new residential area at the time, popped out two kids, owned dogs, and stayed married for over 40 years. They just got divorced the summer they both turned 65. Due to some financial issues, they had to pack up and sell our family home very quickly. This is the same home they bought not long after they were first married, the home that held all of our family memories, records, and things we’ve decided was important to keep over the years. I live out of province, so unfortunately I wasn’t able to get home to help or keep the things I wanted. Since everything happened over the span of a few months, I know both of my parents threw out a lot of things regarding our family history. Or since most of my dad’s distant family is in Germany, and most of my mother’s distant family is in England, we may never have received them in the first place.

So I actually don’t know a lot about my family history. What I do know was told word of mouth and as I grow older I’m not sure how much of the stories I was told are factual or if they were embellished by the family member who told me. For example, my mother claims that my family is related to Sir John A MacDonald. I believed this throughout most of my childhood, but when I was 17 my aunt did a huge family history of that side of the family and she claims that we aren’t related. My mother, to this day, still makes that claim and wears it with pride.

I know that one sect of my family has a history of suicide. My mom had a cousin who took his own life when he was only in his mid-twenties. He was her favourite cousin, the older brother she never had and she kept a picture of him tucked in her bedroom mirror for most of my childhood. A couple other people had taken their own lives, all connected to my Great Aunt. I can’t imagine the grief she experienced but when my mother tells the story it sounds like it was the grief she inflicted on everybody else.

My grandfather fought in the second world war. He was in the 48^th Highlanders and traveled throughout Italy and all over Europe. He met my grandmother during the war. She was only 18 or 19 and they married and she took a ship to Canada to live with his parents while the war fought on. What the hell would she have done if he had been killed? I do have a lot of stories about my grandfather. He died when I was about two, but my mother talked about him a lot. I could write an entire post just of stories my mother had told me. For example, his best friend was a police officer, Mr. Potts. Apparently they met when my grandfather defended Mr. Potts when he was outnumbered and getting beat up outside a bar. Now that I’m older I wonder how much she embellished with those as well. My mother still idolizes my grandfather. Whenever things were tough when I was a kid, she’d always say that things would be different if granddad was still alive.

I know even less of my dad’s side of the family. He immigrated to Canada from Germany when he was a young and hasn’t been back home for a visit since before I was born. The crazy family story I remember him telling me was that my grandparents escaped the Berlin wall. I don’t remember details, just that they escaped by car while the wall was still being built. Though, when I do the math on dates I’m not sure how much of that is true either. Sometimes when asked by a stranger, my dad will tell them (with a very serious look on his face) that my grandparents were professional pole vaulters.

I don’t have a lot of nice stories about my dad’s father. He claimed we’re related to a famous German economist and while pictures of this man do look weirdly like my grandfather I have no actual evidence or family tree to prove that he’s correct. My grandparents lived in a small German town, so I think they got married due to lack of choices opposed to love. He was controlling and stubborn. He spoke with a stutter due to a coal mining accident and him being too stubborn to go to therapy to get his speech fixed. My grandmother was completely dependent on him. She didn’t have her licence so he had to drive her everywhere. She wasn’t allowed to know about their finances, or be a part of any family decision. He died when I was 19 and it was a relief to see my grandmother finally be able to have some control over her own life. He wasn’t there to silence her anymore or boss her around. In the early years after he died she confided in my mother and told her what it was actually like to live with him. She told my mother details she could never share with her own son in fear of painting his father in such a negative light. He was physically and emotionally abusive. He cheated on her multiple times because she knew she couldn’t do anything about it.

My family is shrinking. The only child left is my 14 year old niece. I have two cousins on my dad’s side of the family who might still have children, but honestly I barely think of them as family since I haven’t seen them in over ten years. After that, the youngest member of the family is 31 year old me. While I’m at the age where I think about the possibility of having children (the clock is starting to tick, as they say), a child would definitely be unplanned if I do have one. What stories will my niece have to share with her children? What stories will I be able to share with my child if I decide to have one? I have a fear of what details will be lost after my parents and aunts pass away. My mother is 65 and the youngest out of four, and none of my aunts had children of their own. I have no idea if my mother kept any records, pictures, or documentation or how much of that was lost when she hastily packed up our family home. Will anything get passed on to myself or my sister after everyone else is gone?

Or should I just tell my kid that their German great grandparents were professional pole vaulters, that they’re related to a German economist who was in their prime during the rise of Hitler, and one of their great great great great great (however many greats) uncle was the first prime minister of Canada?