Generations

I have become obsessed with finding my Irish ancestors. As long as I can remember my mom passed on to me what her mom had told her - her grandfather Fryer had come to the United States from Ireland. This information became a badge of honor and the cornerstone for a passion for all things Irish. I looked at pictures of my grandmother and saw a definite Irish face looking back at me. My mom is a red head - she must be Irish, right?

In anticipation of the long awaited trip I joined ancestry.com and began researching. The trouble with family stories is that they don't always mesh with reality. I have gone back to the 1700's and have not found that Irish grandfather. I am now trying my grandmother's maternal side of the family but have hit a roadblock that I can't seem to get past - and, alas no Irish folks.

This is the problem with being a mutt - I have no clear cut ethnic identity. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think less of myself because I am a mixture of so many ethnicities. The variety is what makes me special. I just feel as though I have lost a special part of me.

I have cut myself off from the ancestry search. There are no little boxes with names extending from me. There will never be another person who carries my DNA; no one will look like me, act like me, or carry what is good and special about me to another generation.

In the midst of this sorrow is the blessing of grandchildren. Well, step grandchildren to be specific, but they don't know any different. My stepdaughter's mother died when she was 16 propelling me into a parenting role at the most difficult time of a girl's life. When she had her first child she lived at home, unmarried and scared. I was in the delivery room, cut the cord and was the first person other than her to hold the baby. To this day this child and I are as close as any mother and child could be. She doesn't consider me a grandmother; I am Mimi, one of her parents. She is and always will be the child I never had.

Shorts, as we call her, will take the best parts of me to the next generation. It may not be physical, but that's ok. The physical dies and returns to dust. The soul lives on forever and I am sharing that with her, her sister and everyone else who crosses my path.

I now view my ancestral searches as a fun fact finding mission and enjoy whatever I discover (such as I am descended from the Valtrin family in Alsace-Lorraine France). What matters more than the DNA of people I never knew are the relationships I have today.