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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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Rocks?
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BuckyE
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Re: Rocks?
Jul 18, 2006, 17:53
As far as the general run of Americans, go, I'm about as "American" as you can get. I've documented about five ancestors arriving from Great Britain in the very early 1700s, and at least one in 1640. This is all on my father's side. My mother's side is German (Herrmann) and English (Broadbent). I have no solid documentation on arrival dates for her family. The German is fairly recent, the English probably older.

(Note that there are many "Mayflower" type families which have more demonstrable 17th and 18th century immigrant ancestors than do I. But compared to the total population, they're few in number. So, I'm very solidly whitebread "American" of mainly English with 1/4 German heritage compared to the majority of Americans.)

When I was young, my father's family made a big deal of their Colonial ancestors. This was not about their being English, it was about their being something like "Founders," see? There was a huge fad of searching out Colonial ancestors and their supposed European backgrounds in the decades after the American Centennial (1876, based on the Declaration of Independence; the dates of the drafting (1787) and adoption (1789) of our actual present constitution are pretty much ignored.) Much of this genealogy was bogus; some of it egregiously so, and some just because it was more difficult to do back then. And people wanted Colonial roots; they accepted any such on the most meagre of threads.

I was offered the chance to join the Sons of the American Revolution and asked to be an escort to debutante balls. Really. None of which I did. Those were the hippy days, and the pretentious social posturing was way too much for me to take. Maybe back in the days when my colonial ancestors had uppercrust gentleman's farms and Plantations of thousands of acres (which they did) all that stuff made some sense for social glue among the crusty. But by the time I was a teenager, all that patrimony had long since been frittered away by my immediate family, and the pretentions were risible even to a sixteen year old.

As an aside, I now know from the research I've been doing that it's too bad my elders didn't know the real stories of their Founder ancestors. What I heard was only the most glossed up factoids. Actually, those "founders" were tough, rapacious and pretty darn interesting old landsharks. And on my mother's side, although there were colonial founders, they were hardly mentioned. That family story, as recounted, pretty much always started with my mother's father Clarence Herrmann, a business man who took the family from Connecticut to California late in the Depression, made solidly upper middle class good and was proud of it.

So we missed out on any of the good stuff about our ancient family, and that was that. My feelings of "connection" to an ancient past are, much like Loie's, absolutely the result of a search for one. Of course, all of we Americans have at least some vague ideas about our English heritage: Walter Raleigh's colony and the Pilgrims and all that. Plymouth Rock. Thanksgiving with the Indians who fed the starving Pilgrims. It's a connection about as important as to the Pyramids or the ancient Greeks. It's all just "history." That's not to say we don't respect our history. We have plenty of reconstructions and Founders' Festivals and historic houses owned and opened to the public by local historical societies. People are doing genealogical research: it's one of the most popular hobbies. Libraries can;t keep up with the requests for materials or help.

But most of this activity is superficial: it borders on entertainment. It's serious in the sense that folks feel it's a "good thing," like giving money to charity. Americans feel we should preserve our history, but I don't think we have any really good idea why. Most of us certainly do not believe there will be any dire consequences if we don't learn the lessons of history. Loie and I disagree, but we're oddballs. Naturally, given the foregoing, my inclination is to see "connections" as being made either by search or by inherited legend.

I'm not by any means denying that inherited legend can play a great part in fostering connections to a Place. I'm sure growing up where one regularly see gravestones of known ancestors has a powerful influence. What I'm questioning is the validity of attempting to stretch that kind of a connection--which has solidly documentable roots, born of legends which can be historically investigated, the way I'm doing with my family--back to a *particular* Paleolithic Cheddar Man or *particular* Neolithic monuments. Or even, for that matter, anything that old in Europe.

Now, here's a counter example. It's quite possible the Australian Aborigines *have* kept alive a traditional way of thought for 45,000 years. I don't say it's demonstrated, but I'm more than willing to say it sure looks like it. Well, we can *assume* some documented pagan practices of the seventeenth century or even Medieval Britons are holdovers from people who haved always lived there, and be inspired to appreciate the sacredness of the hallowed ground we tread in their footsteps. Until we find out their folktales were actually garbled versions of Arabic stories brought back by the Crusaders. Does that affect our concept of the relevance of a connection to some particular Place inhabited by our particular family? It does mine.

So no, Nigel, sorry. Even though I've known all my life I have roots in old England, it's the thought of my human family, and, although this would take me off into an even more wacky digressions, my animal family and insect family and tree family and all the families there are, that inspire me. Thanks for listening!
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Re: Rocks? (nigelswift)
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