Traditions. Lore. Stories of ancestors who took big risks and made the family what it is today. All families have these. Most of the time they sound plausible. Sometimes they sound like wild tales that shouldn’t be believed. They might be either. But even in the tall tales, there might be some truth. Why not at least follow the family lore; research its veracity, and see where it leads you?
Family Lore as a Source of History
Tradition—or family lore as I like to call it—is stories handed down from generation to generation. These might be statements, beliefs, legends, customs, etc. The subject matter might relate to ethnicity: “We’ve got Cherokee blood through great-grandmother Sarah Matilda.” It might refer to a death: “Grandmother died during the Blitz in London.” It might refer to a lost love: “Her first marriage was annulled in St. Vincent.” It might refer to financial success: “Someone in the family made a fortune in a silver mine in Baldwin, California, but it was stolen from him.”
In any one of these, there might be truth. As a minimum, they can serve as a starting point for further research. Take that family tradition. Break it down into researchable elements: who, what, when, where. Go and search for documents that might substantiate or refute the tradition. You might not find anything, but you might find other information that is pertinent to your family history.
How One Family “Tradition” was Turned into Firm Genealogy
In my wife’s family, her paternal great-grandfather was Seth Boynton Cheney. Family said he was born in Vermont, went west as a 49er to the California gold fields, and never contacted his family again. In 1880 he was in the Texas Panhandle, and in 1882 in Southwestern Kansas. There he married a woman thirty years younger than him. They raised seven children, and Seth died in 1907, leaving the youngest child, my wife’s grandfather, at seven years old.
He remembered stories told by his dad, such as the Vermont origin and the gold rush. But one item he remembered proved to be a key: Seth always said he had a younger brother who died at age three in a runaway horse accident. He also remembered the name of the Vermont town: Waterville. In 1960 he made a trip to Vermont to see if any of that could be true. There, in the Waterville town records, he saw his father’s birth record, an 1832 birth recorded in 1846. That record also showed a brother two years younger who died at age three. That helped confirm that he had found the right family.
For my research, one other bit of family lore, passed down in Seth’s obituary, proved vital: “He spent four years in the gold fields, then took up sheep and cattle ranching in California, New Mexico, and Texas.” From this small item, I and another cousin were able to find him in California in census and land records, and were able to fill in most of the details of his life from when he went west till he showed up in Texas thirty years later.
Not all Family Lore Will Turn out to be True
“Be skeptical about tales of unclaimed wealth,” advises the book The Source, Ancestry’s guidebook to American genealogy [1995, page 9]. Family lore abounds with stories of brothers who are separated when one went west, found treasure and buried it in the Rocky Mountains, only to be bushwhacked and never get back to it. Or, stories in families on the Eastern seaboard often include ties to English nobility, or maybe a family castle in Scotland and a rogue son who was forced to emigrate.
Record all Family Stories, and Correct Them as you Learn the Truth
As you hear family stories, record them faithfully, whether they seem to be true or not. As stated above, there might be a kernel of truth in them. A little bit of research can perhaps draw out that truth and turn a legend into a factual story.
One important research approach is to see what different family members say about the tradition. It’s important not to prompt other relatives with too much information. Try to let them bring up the story, and give you what they know about it. If their recollection is different than the first person who told it, you might have a second research avenue available. But if you tell them too much, the memory won’t be spontaneous, and thus may not bring out the story as they remember it.
Do not dismiss the family traditions, those that seem to be more legend than fact. Use them as a research starting point. Prove of disprove it, and make your family history more accurate as a result.
David A. Todd - David Todd is a civil engineer, a genealogist, a citizen concerned with the environment, and a writer by passion.
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