We inherit many things from our ancestors...
The family Bible.
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| Random family Bible. None have been passed down to me.... |
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| William P. Williams 1838-1910 |
Heirloom glass.
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| I have similar glass to this, in yellow. |
Antique furniture.
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| NOT my washstand. But very similar to it. |
The color of our eyes.
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| Brother David got his brown eyes from Dad. |
Premature grey hair (Thanks, Dad!)
Propensity to certain diseases. (Again thanks, Dad!)
But did you know that trauma also can be passed down through the generations?
These websites talk about the studies that are proving this phenomenon:
Ozy - this article prompted more research and the decision to blog about this.
The Guardian
PBS
Huffington Post
82 different articles are listed if you do a magazine search with the terms "inherited AND holocaust AND trauma"
The idea is challenged by some, but I tend to agree with it. I have seen it in my own family.
My grandfather was a restless man, working as a long distance trucker for much of his adult life; he also moved frequently. When my younger sister grew up she started showing some of the same tendencies, choosing to move around a lot. Then I learned about my great great grandfather, James Tanner. I had trouble tracking him down in the census records in the late 1800's. Then when I ordered in his Civil War Pension Record, I found out that he moved about every 18 months. He worked for the railroad. Another traveling man. Years later, I met a cousin, Sharon, who also likes to travel a lot. She works as a traveling nurse. Actually, she is a fifth cousin once removed, and we share an ancestor on, you guessed it, the Tanner line.
Several books written by children of Holocaust survivors have touched on how that trauma has affected later generations.
But here is what I really like about this phenomenon:
If the bad things get passed on through the generations, certainly, the good things get passed on too. Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers is all about this idea.
Maybe my grandfather's wanderlust could be viewed as an adventurous spirit. Certainly, as a country settled by people who left everything they knew behind them to go to a unknown place for the possibility of a better life, this wanderlust has been an asset to the U.S., and is often viewed as the height of adventurism.
What did you inherit from your ancestors?
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Just to show that genealogists don't always think just about genealogy, I will discuss something totally different for a moment. Pokemon Go.
In case you haven't heard, Pokemon Go is game app that you download to your smartphone. It is based on the ever popular Pokemon franchise that has been going since the 1990's. Because I am a curious person and because I like to push my technology skills and because it sounded interesting, I downloaded the app. You join a team, you capture Pokemon (virtual monsters), you evolve them, you hatch eggs, you collect Pokemon balls & other items at Poke Stops and you train and you fight other Pokemon at gyms. It is a bit addictive, so I have promised to stop when I reach Level 10, which I did earlier today.
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| This is Evee. I would like to evolve Evee, but don't have enough Candy! Isn't she cute? |
- Capturing Pokemon is fun. It is like catching wild bugs or butterflies.
- You can level up and evolve your Pokemon. So there are increasing levels of development and difficulty.
- You collect different types of Pokemon; water types, grass types, fighters.
- You have to physically walk and physically visit other locations. Walking helps you hatch eggs. Visiting different locations lets you capture different types of Pokemon, visit Poke Stops and the Poke Gyms. The stops and gyms are located in the real world next to landmarks and historical places. The Medina Square has a lot of Poke stops and a Gym. Visiting Medina Lake nets you some water type Pokemon.
- It is something that I could share with my younger daughter and my nephews.
What I didn't like about it:
- Server issues. Because of its huge popularity, there have been whole days when I couldn't connect to the app. Or I would be in the middle of capturing a Pokemon when the connection would fail. Maybe this will get better with time?
- It is addictive. Like any computer game it can eat away at your free time and attention.
- It consumes the battery power on your phone.
- People have actually gotten hurt playing the game. Many just weren't watching where they were going and walked into traffic.
Am I glad I tried it? Sure! Am I glad I have quit? YES!
If you have any questions about Pokemon Go, don't ask me! LOL!
