Lost names blossom during climb up family tree
Those of us who collect old postcards have probably noticed that the names we come across may vary from what’s in fashion today. Some names have a way of coming around again, such as Sophia, Olivia and Emma, which rank high on online tallies of popular baby names. So far, for Mildred — a name I just found on a 1925 Florida holiday postcard — not so much.
Thanks to Michele Morris Jones and Elaine Powell of the Central Florida Genealogical Society, I can now report my relation to names ranging from Asa at one end of the alphabet to plenty of Williams at the other.
I met Jones and Powell at a workshop last month in connection with the Orange County Regional History Center’s “Genome” exhibit. They and other society volunteers generously helped participants as we clambered out on the limbs of our family trees, with me in search of Wallace forebearers with names including Reuben, Thamer (a woman), Drury (a man), and plenty of Nancys.
For those of us who tend perhaps to be just a tad compulsive, this kind of history hunt is like catnip. Now you, too, can stay up into the wee hours in search of just one more leaf, said Jones and the History Center’s chief curator, Pam Schwartz — no stranger to family-tree climbing.
Climbing into rich diversity
As the “Genome” exhibit explains, genomics can help us explore our heritage, in combination with written and oral family histories.
To show how the process works, history center staff, aided by volunteers from the Central Florida Genealogical Society and other groups, worked with five community members: Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Jorge Estevez of WFTV-Channel 9, Brendan O’Connor of Bungalower Media, Toni Deion Pressley of the Orlando Pride, and state Rep. Geraldine Thompson, founder of Orlando’s Wells’Built Museum.
The resulting research underscored the diversity of Central Floridians as well as fascinating family stories. O’Connor’s name may sure sound Irish, for example, but his ancestors include a German cooper (maker of casks and barrels) and a French carpet weaver, as well as a police officer of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
A DNA test showed roots for Rep. Thompson in West and South Africa, but efforts to trace her ancestors ran into the “1870 Brick Wall” that researchers of African-American genealogy often encounter, because the 1870 Federal Census was the first to record African-Americans by name.
The search for news anchor Estevez’s roots also proved difficult, but Lourdes Del Pino of the Cuban Genealogical Society of Miami was able to tie Estevez into a very deep family tree, through which Del Pino and Estevez are actually related.
Mayor Dyer’s and soccer pro Pressley’s family histories contained links to dramatic chapters of America’s past. Dyer’s fourth and fifth greatgrandfathers were killed in 1758, when Shawnee Indians attacked a frontier fort in West Virginia, but his third great-grandfather John, only a year old, and his mother were spared because they were away from the fort.
Pressley’s 11th great-grandfather, John Alden, came to America on the Mayflower in 1620. More than 200 years later, poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow created a fictional portrait of Alden and his wife, Priscilla Mullins, in “The Courtship of Myles Standish.”
So when you talk with family over the holidays, consider climbing out onto the family tree. It’s fun up here — and I didn’t really need to sleep, anyway.
To learn more
The Smithsonian exhibit “Genome: Unlocking Life’s Code” continues at the Orange County Regional History Center through Jan. 6, 2019. Details: thehistorycenter.org.
The nonprofit Central Florida Genealogical Society promotes family-history research by providing education and research opportunities to its members and the public. Regular meetings take place in both Orange and in Seminole County and are free and open to anyone. To learn more, visit the group’s website at www.cfgs.org, send email to cfgs@cfgs.org or write the Central Florida Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 533958, Orlando, FL 32853.