Why we do it...

Growing up, I have vivid memories of seeing my mother with her body bent over a microfilm reader at the Lubbock Public Library. Although I knew she was doing "genealogy", I had no concept of what that actually meant. Instead, I would spend hours perusing the books in the children's section of the library, eventually toting a large pile of them up to the checkout counter. Funny thing was that my mother never walked out of that library with a book. I knew that my mother did genealogy, loved genealogy, but I wasn't sure why.

Although all of you kids have certainly seen me at a microfilm reader, and Mark and Glo have discovered the humor and the horror in reading 150-year-old copies of newspapers on microfilm, I suspect you will remember me sitting at our computer for hours upon end, looking at copies of old records, until my eyes burn. You will certainly remember being driven (dragged?) to Perry County to help me in my urgent rush to look through more records than I can on my own before the 5 p.m. deadline, although I wonder if the lunches at Subway will bring fonder memories. You will also remember wintry days of walking through cemeteries where after seeing the same names over and over (and not finding our own), you start to think that those familiar names belong to us.

What comes from all of this and why do we do it? Certainly there's no money involved. No fame or recognition. Generally, I am the youngest at any genealogy event by at least a generation and I'm sure my mom was too back in the 70's. The names that we find on records are just names until we delve a bit deeper, and the names become people and the people become family. Although I can't speak for my mother, I suspect that she and I do it for much of the same reason. It's to find out who we are.

I want you to look at some my lines of ancestors and then think about me.

The Apgars are smart and talented, by far my most prestigious line of blood. Virginia Apgar developed the Apgar score. Charles Apgar, Virginia's father, cracked enemy codes during WWI. Lawrence Apgar, my grandfather, was an organist and carilloneur throughout New England. My dad was accepted into the Air Force academy. Yes, I like to drop my former last name at medical dinner parties--it always takes me up a couple of pegs in people's eyes.

The Parsons (Gram's line) were highly religious. Many of them were ministers and seminary teachers in Pennsylvania.

The McMillins are an interesting bunch. From what I know, they were mostly business people. I think back to Aunt Ruth and her store in Seward, Oklahoma. She and her brothers owned land with oil on it. I can remember that Grandad McMillin had an amazing office in his home in Las Vegas. I knew, as a child, that big business deals MUST be going on in there.

Of course, none of you have really heard that much about any of these lines, mostly because I haven't had much to do with them, or worked on them lately. I'm sure, however, that you DO recognize the last names of Frank and Matchett. For all of you, you have to go back several generations to even find these last names since they are the ancestors of Gloria Glover, your great-grandmother. However, let me tell you, they are as much a part of me as any others.

The Franks were a great bunch of people who worked on the water. Not the seven seas or anything as grandiose as that. They worked on the Juniata River, a river which separates Perry County from Dauphin County and that feeds into the Susquehanna. They ran the ferry between the two places. For several generations, there are boatsmen and oarsmen and ferry apprentices in that family. When good roads were finally built, several of them moved from building boats to building carriages and made a good living doing so.

The Matchetts. I feel like we need a drum roll, or something! I love our Matchetts. Dessa Hannah Matchett was Gloria Glover's mother, so they aren't too far away from your lives now. Most of the Matchetts lived their entire lives in Pennsylvania. In fact, even now there are still Matchetts in Halifax who attend the church that their ancestors attended. As I have discovered more and more about them, one thing remains constant. Looking through the old census records, after the listing of name and age, the occupation of the head of the household is listed. I can count on it everytime to be the exact same: Farmer. With the exception of one Matchett who owned a shoe factory, every single one of them farmed. The smart ones left the God-forsaken, rocky ground of Pennsylvania and moved to Ohio or Nebraska, but even there, they were farmers. There must have been something in the blood that none of them left that noble profession, and I suspect they were pretty good at it.

Looking at my life, the Apgars gave me (and all of you) my love of music and math. Hmmm....even now I could go for a good logic problem. Should I give credit to the Parsons for religion? Certainly, Daddy and I have become financially successful for which I think the McMillins would be proud. I don't know if our love of the water comes from the Franks but I would like to think it does.

You wonder why I drag all of you outside to work in the garden? Our backs hurt, our hands become sore, frequently we are plagued with bugs and sunburns. I can't even say that we bring in that much food. Certainly we would be starving if had to live on only what we grow. However, I believe there is something inside of me that hearkens back to those Matchetts. Those people of the earth. Those farmers. There is some kind of manifest joy for me that comes from working in the garden. Yes, I make you go out there to teach you about hard work and because Daddy and I actually need your help. However, there is some inherent reason that I feel we need to farm. Perhaps it's because it brings us closer to the people who came before us, the people who made it possible for us to be here today. Certainly, it helps us imagine what their lives must have been like, and it helps us appreciate what they did. And in some small way, if only just for me, it helps me figure out exactly who I am.