Ancestry requires math

Here's the problem with genealogy: exponential growth.  Both directions.  You don't understand?  Would you like me to explain?  I'll do the easy part first.

So say you want to trace my family, although I don't know why YOU would want to trace MY family.  You should trace your own family.  But whatever; here is the problem.

So my mom and dad got married 55 years ago and then proceeded to have six children.  So you start the family tree with mom and dad, you add the kids and there are eight people.

Well, five of the kids got married (four of them more than once) and proceeded to have eighteen children.  So now you have twenty-six people.  Now the eighteen grandchildren are beginning to have children. So far, eight of them have had twelve children.  Well, honestly, seven of them have had eleven children, but give it another couple of months and there will be a new baby, so let's just call it twelve.

So in fifty-five years, the "family" has grown from mom and dad - to mom and dad and children and grand-children and great-grand-children, and those two people made a family of thirty-eight people.

That's manageable, right?  Sure it is. (until you try to get them all in a room together!) But I told you I was going to start with the easy part. 

Check this out.

You have two parents, right?  and each of them have two parents, so you have four grandparents.  And each of them has two parents, so you have eight great-grandparents.  I'm sure you see where I'm going with this.  If you go back very far, it starts to be a lot of people.  A lot of people.  A lot.  And if you try to keep up with aunts and uncles and cousins, it gets totally out of control.

So say you want to go back five generations, your great-great-great-great grandparents. You have thirty-two of those.  You really want to trace the family history?  You're lucky enough that there are records available to the early 17th century when they all came to America?  (That's when most of my family got here - the rest of them were already here.)  So call that ten generations, that is what it is for the branch of the family I just glanced at.  So the Sabin dude that moved here in 1620, he's my tenth great-grandfather.   If you were able to trace every single ancestor back ten generations, there would be 2,048 of them!  I might be related to every person that came to America in the 17th century...how many people actually came over here that long ago?

Want to be fancy and say you're descended from Charlemagne?  Help yourself.  You probably are; you and about a bajillion other people.  Also, you're descended from Charlemagne and the other 467 million ancestors of that generation.  Okay, I didn't really do the math because ... well...I don't want to.  But if you tried to go back that many generations, you would either be descended from the entire population of Europe, or there were some cousins doing things that cousins shouldn't do.

Okay, I just looked it up and if you go back 30 generations it is going to be over a billion people, but there weren't a billion people on earth, and there wasn't a lot of inter-continental travel going on, either. But there was a lot of uncle/niece, cousin/cousin marrying and baby making.

So anyway, that's one of the issues that is somewhat troubling.  And the main reason that I don't want to try and write it all down on pedigree charts.  Phooey on that.  Websites all the way!!  :)

Also, people on ancestry.com will just write down stupid things.  Like going all the way back to before the time when surnames were commonly used, and there's a guy (in Wales)  named James ap Owain, which means James, son of Owain.  Right?  But then whoever is writing this down doesn't know the name of the mother, so they write down "Mrs. James ap Owain".  Well, I don't really think that's accurate.  Just write down 'unknown'.  Honestly, at that time wives weren't referred to as "Mrs. Husband's last name" because husband didn't have a last name.  So don't make stuff up.

Norse history?  If your name was Eric Thorsson, it meant you were Thor's son.  And your wife was named Hildegard Sigurdsdattar because her father was Sigurd. And your kid will be whatever you name him Ericsson.

So the good news is you know who everybody's father was.  You don't know who anybody's mother was, but I can assure you there are no actual records anywhere that say the mother of Hildegard was Mrs Sigurdsdattar.  People annoy me sometimes. 

And....I'm kind of done talking about that.  Bye.

My son

I was just talking to my oldest son on the phone, and I'm a little bit teary-eyed.  He's falling in love, although I'm not sure he realizes it. I think I'm seeing the beginning of a pathway that is going to lead to me not being the most important woman in his life.  That's a good thing; I want him to have love and a family and all that...but I don't know this woman yet, so I'm a little apprehensive.  Jake is no fool, and he's not a child. He knows what he wants in life and he isn't afraid to tell people to go away and he isn't afraid to walk away, so probably it's okay.  But it makes me sad and proud to see what a wonderful young man he has grown up to be, and to see him taking his first steps on this new journey and knowing what a trip it is going to be.


And trust my child to test me.  He's falling for a woman who is five years older than him, a woman who is divorced, a woman who has two children.  Every motherly instinct in my body wants to tell him to run and find someone who hasn't already had a bad experience with love...but I can't do that.

I once WAS a woman who was divorced with two young children, and it didn't make me a bad bet.  I fought against a lot of prejudice from men and mothers who thought I must be looking for a daddy for my kids, that I must be looking for someone to support me financially, that I must be desperate to latch onto any man that would stand still, but that was never the case.

From what I understand, this young woman is "such a good mom, just like you are.  She takes such good care of her kids and she doesn't NEED anybody to help her."  I can only hope that is true.

Bottom line is this:  I don't care what road she's been down or what block she's been around.  I care if she loves my son and treats him right and if she wants to join him in the life that he has chosen.  I hope he doesn't fall in love and give up his ideals or give in at the first sign of trouble.   It's hard enough to be married, it's even harder to raise children.  It's incredibly hard to start out marriage with children and deal with the other parents and all that goes along with that.

But who knows.  He isn't one to get in a hurry.  I may look back at this two years from now and laugh.  But I heard words and emotions from him tonight that I've never heard in 26 years, and I think he's taken a few steps in that direction.  We shall see. 

At least he isn't going to move to England, like my daughter!!!!!  Which is a whole different story.  We'll get to that someday.

The Fountain of Middle Age

Sometimes, like right now, I feel like a total failure.  Sometimes I feel okay, but not right now.  I am going to try and lay out a list of facts with no emotion.  I'll get to the emotion.

I am a woman who is forty-nine years old.
I have been married and divorced twice.
I have had a few other relationships that were all the same and ended the same.
I have four children, who I raised on my own, with very little help but a great deal of criticism from their fathers.
I have had nine jobs in my life.
I have owned eight cars in my life.
I have never owned a house.
I have burned a lot of bridges, sometimes before I was completely across them.
I have several very good friends, and I rarely talk to them.
I am currently in the best relationship of my life, with the man that is better than all of my dreams.
I have some health issues - some beyond my control, some...not so much.

Now, to more subjective issues:

I have always considered myself slightly above average looking.  I don't anymore.
I can be witty and charming.  I can be boring and one step away from catatonic.  I can carry on an intelligent conversation, and I can go for hours without speaking. I can be very giving and generous; I love without reservation.  I can be very selfish.  I have thoughts of things that I should do for people I love, but I fail at turning that into action.

I have raised four children by myself, and they are all wonderful people, with various problems and idiosyncrasies. They are all employed and self-reliant, I consider that a win. I worked and paid the bills and cooked the meals and attended plays, award ceremonies, parent/teacher meetings, baseball games, hockey games, soccer games, basketball games and tennis matches.  I watched practices and skateboard competitions; I was the president of the PTA, I was the room mother, I was on the Little League Board of Directors, the Athletic Booster Club, the Band Boosters, and the Orchestra Boosters.

Sometimes I think that I used up all my energy in the 27 years that I was raising my kids, and now there is nothing left.  Sometimes I think that if I would get off my fat ass and lose about forty pounds, a lot of my medical issues would cease being issues, and I would have more energy to DO things.

But then sometimes I think maybe this is just what it feels like to be fifty.  I don't know.  What does everybody else feel like?  How are you supposed to know that?  Does everybody struggle to shower and get dressed every day?  I mean, some days I just want to stay in my jammies.  Of course, that is a problem because I don't wear jammies - but the concept is the same.

I just don't always feel like I am being the person I should be.  Somewhere down the line I became this person that I don't always recognize.  I'm just so tired.  Not sleepy, tired.  Tired.  Tired.

What is keeping me awake tonight is I am feeling a little overwhelmed by my general unworthiness in life, and wondering why my ever so fabulous boyfriend wants me.  Or how long he'll want me.  I don't feel like I deserve him anymore.

Now, what is stupid about this is that some of the more tangible things that make me feel unworthy are totally under my control.  Like, for instance, I have this terrible tendency to be a slob.  I can leave dishes in the sink for three days while having the best of intentions of doing them in just a minute.  More than half the time, he does them, and he doesn't complain a bit.  But it makes me feel like crap.  So why don't I just get up and do the damn dishes?  So I'm tired.  So it makes my back hurt a little bit.  And?  Do the damn dishes!  Clear the clutter off the bathroom counter every now and then.  Quit putting your clothes in the bedroom floor.  There's a hamper in the bathroom.  Right? 

And you know, get on the bicycle or something and lose some weight.  He deserves so much better than how I look right now.  But I feel so helpless, somehow.  Overwhelmed.  It's just so much easier to sit on the couch and stare at the TV; play a game on my phone; read a book.  I just want things to magically fix themselves while I'm sleeping.  Is that so much to ask?  Yeah, yeah, I know.

So whoever said that life was fair?  Or easy?  As hard as I worked all those years when I had kids....I wouldn't have to do half the work now, but it didn't hurt to do it then.  :)  This aging thing is for the birds. 

So I should go to bed and get some sleep.  I should get up tomorrow and finish the laundry and clean the kitchen and the bathroom.  I should go ride my bike, and drink water instead of Dr Pepper.  I should keep a positive attitude and DO things instead of thinking things.  Doesn't that sound easy?  Sure it does.

And it might happen.  It might. Or I might sleep for twelve hours.  Again.