"Past" Addiction

I thought I’d kicked my habit years ago. After all I’d hit a dead end in my life with nowhere else to go. And what made it even worse was I’d gotten my son hooked.

Then this week the craving started again and I gave into it. I signed up for a free 14-day trial around 6 p.m. on Monday and suddenly the next thing I knew it was midnight. For six hours I’d been mainlining my ancestors that familiar rush coursing through my veins. Every click of my mouse leading me closer and closer to people I’d never met but whose DNA I shared. Yes, I’d succumbed to Ancestry.com and their lure of an Independence Day discount with the promise of the latest and newest databases like the new Revolutionary War records or the Bounty Land Warrant Application files. What the heck are Bounty Land Warrant Applications? I didn’t care. I wanted in. And in I went.

What’s alluring and addictive about this ancestry site is how easy it is to find your kin and grow your family tree. When I’d researched my family ten years ago, I went to the nearest Latter Day Saints church and scrolled through their reels and reels of microfiche, which took hours and hours and sometimes caused vertigo. But with Ancestry I merely typed in a name, birth date if I knew it, city of residence, city of birth and up popped dead relatives and facts about them I never knew, facts that with a little imagination helped to explain their lives.

For example, my paternal grandmother, Mary Thiery (born 1893?), who everyone called Mamie and was reputed to once been a spicy strawberry blonde with a temper to match, came from a family of 12 children, 7 of whom lived. Her parents emigrated from Bremen, Germany in 1882 arriving in New York. I’m assuming at Ellis Island. What sadness must have been in her house growing up with the ghosts of 5 siblings. Did that account for her quick temper and need to control everyone? Did that account for her compulsive hand washing that my mother said was a symptom of guilt. What guilt, I wondered as a child. Now maybe I have an explanation. She might have felt guilty for surviving when so many of her siblings had died.

My dad’s father, Stephen Kalina born 1896, whom I never knew, barely exists on Ancestry. But I have photos of him and his father John Kalina. Both have lantern jaws-- a Kalina trait that occasionally asserts itself. Strange how even the pretty features of Stephen Kalina’s mother, Mary Paul born 1877 in Cleveland Ohio, couldn’t soften that jaw--a jaw that looks like determination and drive. But never translated to a prosperous life built on drive and determination. Not only had the Kalinas never left Cleveland, Ohio until my generation, they also never left their house on 54^th Street where they lived for generations.

When I find Mary Paul’s record (my great grandmother), I find an explanation for why the Kalinas, for all their time in the US, never seemed to prosper. Does Mary’s Paul’s bad luck explain it? She was widowed at a young age, left to fend for herself and her 7 children, the youngest 2 years old; living in one house with them, her mother, Barbara Paul born 1856 in Austria, and 6 other Paul relatives. What time would there have been to assert that lantern jaw, what motivation? Getting by must have been enough. And I remind myself that though they never seized the American dream of prosperity, they had an amazing capacity to live in the moment, to have a good time, not to take life too seriously.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to opt out when my 14- day free trial period expires. I’ve pretty much hit another dead end due to my obsessive searching. The next step is garnering birth, marriage, and death certificates, as well as military service and immigration records. I can almost feel the pleasure of opening those documents and seeing my ancestors come alive for me.

Any other past addicts want to share their experiences?