Folks are often amazed that I gather together EVERYTHING on EVERYBODY when I’m doing family research. They tend to ask, “Why would you care about the parents of your grandmother’s fourth husband? I usually just laugh and say something about my obsession.
But I think I’ve finally figured out an answer after spending hours last night tracking down a “lost” family who were the half siblings of Ada Leppard (the wife of my second cousin four times removed). Okay, I know that’s going to extremes and that finding families is a wonderful game for me, but there’s more to the answer than that.
I realized as I added a photograph to my family tree of Gladys and then for good measure included her marriage announcement to my grandfather and her funeral card that for me family is not biology. For me family is every person who touches my life in some way. That means that Gladys who didn’t become part of my life until I was ten years old is just as important to me as the man she married (my biological grandfather). There’s also the fact that every Christmas until she passed away in 1986 (and ten years after my grandfather died) she sent me a check at Christmas to buy something special for my children. For many years that “something” was expensive footed sleepers that my kids loved but that were not in my limited budget. Every time they wore them I thought of her. Every year I’d send her a picture of the kids dressed in their comfy warm sleepwear as a way of thanking her. [The one posted here is from 1977 when Sarah was about two and half.]
So is family just about people who give me or my children “things”? Nope. It’s also about memories and love and experiences and conversations. It’s about letters from far away or long ago. It’s about photos found in shoe boxes revealing a bit of life I didn’t live. It’s about ash trays that look like coal scuttles given by an uncle-in-law and handed down through the generations. It’s about all the people who are connected to me through my “tree” no matter how far removed they may be from me biologically.
It’s why Connie (and her children) who was the child of my mother’s step-mother is important to me. It’s why Jude who is the granddaughter of my step-grandmother’s sister is also part of my family. Each of these women were part of my life growing up. They are memory families – not biological ones.
I’ve worked with several people who were adopted. After their adopted parents had passed away, they wanted to find out about their biological parents. They understood that they had two families: “memory” parents and biological ones.
I’ve also had to deal with the question of parents who turned out not to be biological ones due to a marital “misstep.” Does that mean that long line that has already been traced back six generations is no longer valid? Not in my world, obviously. If a child grew up with folks, then no matter what the biology is, they are still family. I trace that heritage with as much dedication as I do any other.
With a definition as broad as mine, it’s not surprising that my “tree” has over 30,000 people in it and growing. That “found” Leppard family added another 20 folks to my world last night. I welcome them in.
Susan E L Lake 
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