My interest in putting together my family tree has always stemmed from my fascination with history. Answering the questions of Where were my ancestors at this point in history? What were they doing, and how did they live? forges a link between us and the past, a curiously immediate and emotional link—it’s a different feeling than one gets from merely reading and studying history from the foreign vantage-point of the twenty-first century.
On the other hand, the more I dig and discover, the more my writer’s imagination feeds off the little scraps of information I piece together. My amateur-level genealogical research has already led from hazy possible beginnings among the Normans of William the Conqueror’s time, to the early colonial settlements of Massachusetts; from brick row houses in Dublin to textile mills in New York; from farms in Vermont and Minnesota to a boarding-house in California; through orphanages and Army barracks, through Castle Garden and Ellis Island—from Constantinople to Marseilles to Bremen to Texas. The mere listing of individuals’ professions on census records are myriad little sparks of the imagination, begging to be blown into the flame of a story someday. Farmer. Laborer. Sawmill worker. Woolen mill foreman. Teamster. Chauffeur. Mechanic. Domestic servant. Schoolteacher. Housekeeper. Photographer. Railroad fireman. Clerk. Carpenter. Tailor. Café owner.
The answers to who and what my ancestors were create another set of questions: What did this place look like when they lived here? What kind of a living did a man in that profession make; what kind of clothes did his family wear? How and where did the paths of this couple first cross? The figure of an ancestor in the foreground makes me want to learn more about the background…and to resurrect all those forgotten stories in imagined stories of my own.
Of course, there’s even more prosaic ways that researching genealogy can inspire a historical fiction writer. Character naming, for instance. If you ever run dry when trying to name characters, just take a look over a census for the time and place you’re writing about—or even just look at the names in your own family tree. To give you a slight idea of what a fruitful resource this can be, here’s just a sampling of women’s names that I’ve seen, as either first or middle names, among my own ancestors and their relations:
You could write a dozen novels and not exhaust that list.
When it comes to colonial and early America, the names can be particularly unique and entertaining. One New England ancestor of mine, name of Manassa Sprague, had brothers named Hiram and Cyrenius, and another rejoicing in the full name of Governor Galusha Sprague. Another ancestor had a brother named Independence, while some of the more interesting women’s names I’ve spotted included Alpha and Czarina. How a woman born in New Hampshire around 1800 (Independence’s sister, by the way) was given a name that is Russian for “empress” is a curious question in and of itself.
Irish names, on the other hand, present a challenge to the researcher in that they’re all the same. If you’re looking for an ancestor named William or Edward, chances are there’ll be at least five Williams or Edwards sharing his surname in any given city.
Diwakar says
HELLO Elisabeth. I am a Pastor from Mumbai, India. I am blessed and feel privileged and honored to get connected with you because of who you are in the Lord Jesus Christ. I am sorry for using your blog post to share about a program our church in Mumbai, has for the young and the adults from the west. I love getting connected with the people of God around the globe to be encouraged, strengthened and praying for one another. I have been in the Pastoral ministry for last 37 yrs in this great city of Mumbai a city with a great contrast where richest of rich and the poorest of poor live. We reach out to the poorest of poor with the love of Christ to bring healing to the brokenhearted. We also encourage young and the adults from the west to come to MUMBAI to work with us during their vacation time. We would love to have you come to Mumbai with your friends to work with us during your vacation time.Since you are a writer you can very well capture the lives stories in the slums of Mumbai in your words to develop them in to a book form. I am sure you will have a life changing experience. My email id is: dhwankhede(at)gmail(dot)com and my name is Diwakar Wankhede. Looking forward to hear from you very soon. god's richest blessings on you, your family and friends and also wishing you a blessed and a Christ centered rest of the year 2016.
Michelle Athy says
I've been looking into my Irish ancestors for a few years now. I got back as far as the late eighteenth century, but that's all for the moment, since my ancestors were from a rural place and were Catholic. But you're right; they all had the same names–Thomas, Michael, Edward, over and over and over again. A Patrick if they were feeling exotic. The women's names aren't much better–a lot of Marys and Anns–but there were a few Winifreds, Sabina, Celia, Honor, Honora, etc.
I don't know that it's necessarily influenced my writing, but it's definitely given me a personal perspective on World War One or various Irish famines and politics in the 19th century.
Kate says
I'm so happy that someone else feels this way. I am an avid, though not professional, genealogist. Whenever I research my family I experience an explosion of ideas and names and settings and clarifications regarding my writing. I plan to write the love stories of two of my great-grandparents someday because of the remarkable stories they left behind. One of my great-grandmothers was an avid photographer in the late 1940s and so I have a wonderful documentation of both her life and her lifestyle. I have some infamous ancestors, too, which is strangely exhilarating. And names! I participate in a program called indexing (see FamilySearch.com–it's run by a genealogy site) where volunteers transcribe old documents to make them searchable on the internet. It's a gold mine! I keep a running list of the fabulous given/surnames, professions, location names, and physical descriptions that I find. Newspapers, marriage records, censuses, birth certificates, war draft registrations, Freedmans' Bureau documents, Rev. War registers–you name it, they're there. It is my largest source of inspiration, and (best of all) it's all real and thus very true to life. I'm so glad you wrote about this. It makes me happy.
P.S. I am 0% Irish but I understand what you mean about untraceable lineage. I'm largely Swiss, and there are very few records/leads regarding my ancestors among the millions of Baumgartner and Wintsch families out there…
Hayden says
I've been interested in genealogy for almost as long as I can remember, and I agree- it's wonderful for writers! Like you, I'm especially interested in the names as well as the professions (In fact, the novel I'm working on now has a hero with the name of a several-times-great-grandfather of mine 🙂
Because most of my family is descended from more recent immigrants, there is a lot of very ethnic Danish and Polish names on my mom's side. What was really surprising to me was finding out my mostly-Irish grandmother (on my father's side) actually has one branch of the tree that can be traced back to Colonial New England. Lots of great names there, too, and they're certainly more unusual and easily traceable than the ones of the Irish Catholic ancestors 😉
Elisabeth Grace Foley says
Pastor Wankhede, I've sent you an email.
Michelle – "If they were feeling exotic"—ha! Love that. Mary and Margaret have been the most common women's names for me so far, though there've also been instances of Honora, Catherine, Emily, Anna and Elizabeth.
Kate – Oh, yes, that's exactly what I mean! FamilySearch has been where I've done the vast majority of my research so far, too. I sure wish I'd had a few ancestors who saved photos and documents, though; it sure would make tracing them easier. 🙂
Hayden – When I started looking into Irish ancestors, I found a name I'd given a character in my short story "The Ranch Next Door," Patrick Ryan, was in fact the name of a several-times-great-grandfather of mine! With the Irish tendency to use the same names, though, it's hardly surprising I hit on it. 🙂 I am planning to use a more unusual middle name from another branch of the family in a future novel. I've had a few surprises, too, such as discovering an Irishwoman in a line that I'd thought was entirely German, or a little Dutch ancestry I had no clue about.