Tell of Tales

 I have been utilizing Ancestry.com to dig into my past. I am shocked at how quickly we have overcome a search for certain records. Over a decade ago, doing this research online, I hit road blocks. I couldn't image searching through old libraries, driving from town to town searching for headstones. Memory triggered. I did have in my possession, a family members completely dedicated work to tracking down her past, my past, our past. I had received this PDF from a contact online, I am not even sure now how I received it. But, I had it and it prompted me to start my Ancenstry.com journey many years ago. 

I have a PDF file from an Ethel Evans of Big Bear Lake, California. It details generations of genealogy. So much footwork and physical searching for records, old fish film, catalogues. My grandchildren would be lost to navigate this world. Over a decade ago, I picked up the torch, along with others, to continue the search. Information online was plenty then, but I hit road blocks after about five generations. Then life consumed me and I put the search down. My current personal project, the thing that makes me feel useful, has led me back to this search. Lighting the torch, once again. Swinging the flame through the dark caves. I feel like Indiana Jones. 

I obsessively worked for over ten hours yesterday researching my family tree. I had to make myself go to bed after midnight, with still my laptop in hand. I have slept maybe five hours, and I am up now, excited to research again. I am just amazed at the added databanks now. The access to information is amazing. I feel like that young girl obsessively saving old original gif art on 3.5 floppy disks. Right clicking and saving graphics to build a website. I was so excited. I had so many graphic art files. Those evolved into CDs, then flash drives, into the cloud. 

There was a storybook I loved from my  childhood. It was maybe around 1984 and it was about a boy and his robot. What I remember most from that book was the blue sky and conveyor belts in the sky with vehicles on them. To this day, every time I drive over the bypass to old restaurant row, I remember that book. I feel bliss thinking about those blue skies, with fluffy clouds drifting by. I am hopeful in that moment. Every time I drive over that bridge, I connect to those memories. I feel so much peace. What does this even speak to? 

I clicked and double clicked files for hours, building ever larger my family tree. Images began to appear that took me back to other moments, I had buried. I remember spending Easters and other Holy Days in the cemetery as a child. We had picnics in the cemetery. I have so many moments in the cemetery. I never thought it odd at all. I drilled down into files with photos, old polaroids, scanned into the databanks. Picture after picture of headstones. Then I remembered playing in the cemetery as a child, hiding behind tombstones. That is where I remember reading the names on the graves. 

One spring in particular stands out, I think it was 1985, in the spring. I remember wearing my favorite dress and visiting my grandparents. I have so many memories from that time, it was a fragrant time. My grandpa Clyde was handicapped. He had a stroke before, but that is the only way I knew him. He could yell, I remember that. He hated my cousin Joey. He would shake his cane with an unsteady arm yelling, and we knew it was at Joey. We weren't allowed in the house much, but I remember the times I was. Memories of my grandmother's smoked cigarette butts lined up perfectly in her green glass ash trays.  Always pressing red lips onto the same place on the butt to not mess up  her lipstick. Her bright red lipstick was something I remembered fondly. All in a row, little white sticks with red flamed bottoms lined up in the ashtrays scattered about. She smoked a lot. 

When I saw pictures of the headstones, I remember reading those same names in the cemetery. I remember meeting some of those people. I remember hearing their names and seeing the very same images under the glass table top that held up the ashtrays. And fruit bowels I was not allowed to touch. I would sit by the fireplace looking at all the pictures under the glass. I loved that smell when I was there. I was firewood and the smell of beans and cornbread cooking. And cigarette smoke. That one spring I remember the daffodils and the blue skies behind the budding branches sprawled against the clouds. The clouds rolled past the blue sky and the trees swayed. Leaves crunched under my feet as I walked past the headstones. There were daffodils coming up by some graves and by the big oak tree, and I was very excited. Seeing many of those photos online brought back those memories.There are some fascinating relationships popping up in my genealogy research. People that I heard stories about, but didn't know. It was a retelling of old times, a retelling of tales. 

I always wondered if any of their tales were true. Was one of my ancestors a warrior Chief? I specifically remember the moment I disappointed my mother. It was when my hair turned red. I was born with "coal black" hair and they thought it was the "Indian" in me. My mother retold the story of her disappointment many times as we went through her big brown photo album. And then my hair started to lighten, and turn red, eventually settling on dishwater blonde? I haven't seen my natural hair color in at least three decades. I carried that disappointment with me, quietly. What a strange thing to shame yourself about. I remembered all that when the tree electronically branched out to Chief Pushmataha  Lipsec. And that relationship is where things get questionable and need deeper research. 

I specifically started with my mother's lineage. I wanted the mitochondrial view. The intersection at Pushmataha is where my question is; who was this woman he had children with? That is my ancestor, according to what I was looking at on the family tree. I am backtracking now and rechecking all the sources to make sure I am in fact researching the correct people. It is a strange story, even if it isn't my ancestor. I am fascinated, after I fought through my traumas regarding my red hair.