Even more thankful, via family history

I am the kind of person who has always tried to be thankful every day. But I have found that researching my family history has made me even more appreciative than before.

My grandfather graduating from college.

This year I have traced my grandfather’s mother’s family back a few more generations in England. I have discovered that they were living on the margins of society; some were sometimes supported by the parish shortly before the poor laws were changed, and others were in the workhouse shortly after the poor laws were changed. My great-grandmother’s grandparents chose to leave everything and everyone they had known behind in hopes of making a better life for themselves and their descendants, and my great-grandmother’s father, a young man recently out on his own, chose to go with them. They left for Canada, and I have no evidence that they ever returned to the parishes where their families had lived for generations, nor that they ever saw anyone they had left behind in England ever again, which included a couple of their grown children and their living siblings.

My great-grandmother’s father met a fellow English emigre in Canada, married her, and started a family. In search of continuing to better their lives, they moved down to the United States shortly before my great-grandmother was born and bought a farm. In three generations the family had gone from desperately poor to land-owning. My great-grandmother’s son – and my grandfather – became the first person in this family to graduate from college. His graduation photo is pictured above. I find the picture all the more poignant now that I know the circumstances that eventually led to him standing there having his photo taken.

I am grateful every day for the sacrifices my ancestors made so that descendants like me could have better lives than they did.  Happy Thanksgiving to the fellow Americans who read this blog!

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