Family Portrait

I've been continuing my genealogy search that has been a background activity for the last 10 months with slow progress. Recently a distant cousin from Oregon sent the picture of my Great-Great-Grandfather with his wife and kids. That would make five generations difference between Finn and him.

Genealogy is strange in that someone who is 5 generations removed is only 1/32 of you, but seeing a picture of them makes the connection seem much larger. Connecting with generations further back reveals the story of the family line of which you are a part.

A funny thing about genealogy is that if you can connect back far enough, going farther becomes much easier. A common ancestor born in 1800 has at least 50,000 living members of the current generation sharing part of their genes. That's a lot of people to help do your research.

The other aspect of genealogy that is interesting is that we are a nearly unique and specific mix of histories. French Canadians, Polish immigrants, and Scandinavian farmers came together to create me. Sarah adds in a heavy dose of the British Isles to Finn. If the migration of predecessors were drawn on a map, the result would look like a series of arrows funneling in towards a common goal. From all over Northern Europe people crossed the oceans, moved across the country, and finally ended up in Cincinnati as a smiling little boy.