ROOTIER THAN THOU [T, 2-2-21]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

ROOTIER THAN THOU       [T, 2-2-21]

Helen and I often watch “Finding Your Roots” on PBS with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. It’s surprising how many people know almost nothing about their family history.

I thought I knew my family history pretty well. My mother was exceptional with names and dates from both sides of the family. And our daughter, Katie, in her desire to be a professional historian, went to the court house in Xenia, Ohio, when she was just a high schooler, and traced the McFarland side back another three generations beyond what we already knew.

One of my ancestors had filed in that court house a will that, among other items, left “the three-legged milking stool to the daughter who has the wayward eye.” I mean, that’s detail! We know a lot about our family.

Of course, it made me wonder if I knew nearly as much as I thought I did when my father told me, when I was 67 years old, that I was not really his child. I think it was just wishful thinking. We look an awful lot alike.

I’m not sure this roots tracing is a good thing. A lot of people do it so they can claim to be “rootier than thou. My ancestors came over on a particular boat, or from a particular country, so I have a better lineage, family history, than you do.”

Our granddaughter traced Helen’s lineage back to King Tkvysht of Turkey. She’s been kind of hard to live with ever since. It would be even harder if she could pronounce Tkvysht.

The archeologists say the same thing about Susie, that little black woman from East Africa from whom we all descended 200,000 years ago. They gave her the formal name of Eve, which is appropriate, but those of us who know our roots know that her nickname is Susie. Of course, to be mother of us all, she had to have a husband. I assume his name was John, as in John Doe, and in “Dear John, I’ve sent your wooly mammoth skin home.”

Well, the bottom line, on the family tree chart, is that we are all children of God. That’s the only root we need to know about. The rabbis say that the point of the Adam and Eve story is that none of us can claim better parentage than anyone else. When we forget that, we get into trouble.

John Robert McFarland

Roots are important, but so are wings.