AMERICA! AMERICA!
Never once did The Bubba sigh and say to us, "Ah, The Shtetl, how I miss it;"
Safe and distant how we praise that s**thole from the perch of our joys illicit!
That poetry got me interested in doing some online research into the specifics of my family's origin. Turns out my family had been settled in England since the reign of King Athelstan (c.895–939). They had a timber castle, Castle Hylton (at times Hilton) and it was subsequently re-built in stone by Sir William Hylton between 1376 and 1435. This info, along with a lot more, is all available in Wikipedia, so you know it is accurate.
So, not exactly a Shtetl, but on the other hand, once one has a large enough number of offspring eventually the family outgrows even a nice suburban split level. So some of us wandered away from the old home place, and by the 1660s one guy in particular, had sailed to the New World and named an island after himself.
But between say, circa 900 and 1660-something I know very little of what went on. There were predations, wanderings, knavery, banishments, invasions and the usual things that go with that, which dovetails nicely with Chip's early post about Vikings and Saxons. My oldest brother always said I look like a Viking, all I needed was the hat, but alas, I never got the horned hat, nor a title to a castle or so much as a house on a golf course on our namesake island. Nope. I got doodly squat. Well, other than an attitude and a desire to go Viking, but I am mostly over the latter at this stage of my life.
This is what the castle looks like now - pretty hokey, when you get right down to it.
And this is a family picture from over 100 years ago. The distinguished gentleman with the long white beard is my great-grandfather, a Civil War veteran, the man in the back seat of this photo studio touring car is my grandfather who died before I was born, and the little dude with his finger up his nose is my uncle - I knew him, used to hang around with him when he and his family lived in this country. He was a Foggy Bottom guy and spent years living in South America. One more tidbit - after he researched our family tree and discovered that we had descended from Capt. William Hilton, he retired to Hilton Head Island and lived out his days there. Oh, to be a wealthy government drone, eh? Okay, tidbit number two - I look so much like my GGF that it kind of freaks me out. But once again, I can't find a hat that looks like his.
6 comments:
It's amazing how stern 19th century Americans looked. Whether it's pictures of Civil War soldiers or homesteaders in front of their sod homes they are always grave. There seemed to have been no impulse to entertain the eventual viewers of their portraits. I've heard that all it amounts to is that they had to hold still for the long exposures. Perhaps. I think it's more that life was serious. It wasn't even up for debate. Life is serious. I am serious. It's in their faces. It's in your Great Grandfather's face. We take it for being stern or grim and that it's a fierce look but it's not, it's a serious look.
He fought in the Civil War. That right there is enough to make one serious.
When he got home he ran a sawmill. At some point in the late 1800s he managed to saw off his left arm at said mill. My grandfather, the guy in the back seat, got on a horse and rode off to get a doctor. He rode the first horse to death, that's how eager he was to save his father's life.
He got another horse, rode it, got to the doc, brought the doc back, and even with the lousy medical arts of the time, the doc managed to save my great-grandfather's life. Great granddad lived up until 1917 and died at the age of 74. Tough doesn't even begin to describe him.
So yeah, they are serious because they have seen some shit. And if you look closely at that picture, you will notice that my GGF has but one arm. So far I have avoided that fate in my life as a sawyer, knock on wood.
My great grandfather dodged the Civil War. His two brothers fought in it. They were enlisted men, though one reached the rank of corporal. One was wounded in the wrist at the Second Battle of Fair Oaks. Who even knew there was a first battle? My family has a gift for obscurity and for avoiding the big moments of history......I learned these details from Ancestry.com, not from family stories passed down. I suppose the family stories were not passed down because there's not much to tell. I myself slept through most of the shining moments of my era.
One of the most rewarding things that I've done is to take a DNA test with Ancestry, and I now have a family tree of over 3,400 people.
I have been reluctant to do that as just on the Hilton side alone there are hundreds of cousins of various sorts - first, second, some removed, some incarcerated.
Which reminds me, back in the '50s, when Conrad Hilton was first gaining notoriety my folks used to call him "Uncle Connie". Turns out his family is from Norway, which means he was on the Viking side of things. Not sure who begot whom, but in any case I think it is safe to say that I am not related to Paris. There some things one should be thankful for.
60, I had a great uncle that died from syphilis. It didn't matter to me. I find the information that Ancestry has to offer exceptionally super interesting and informative. Their "hints" keep leading you down the family trail. Around the first years of the 1700s, I had 2 instances of cousins marrying cousins. Also, I'm part Jewish. Who knew?
Post a Comment