Connect With Your Lineage

Your lineage means your people — who you came from. Their stories, their struggles, their ideas all shape who you are.

Do you know who your ancestors are? Your great-grandparents, or great-great or even further back? Is there one of them whose story seems to draw you in or inspire you?

If you’re wondering why it’s important to understand ancestors who are dead and gone, think about the metaphor of a tree. When you see a tree, you may notice its trunk, its branches, and its leaves. But are you actually seeing the whole tree? If that were all of it, why wouldn’t it fall over easily? If you think about it a bit more, you will realize that there is a huge root system beneath the tree, anchoring it to the ground through storms, providing water and nutrients. You couldn’t really understand a tree if we looked at it only from the ground up.

We humans are like trees, visible from the ground up, but with invisible roots underneath us which shape who we are. These roots are our ancestors, our family stories, and the journeys our family has taken. In this experience you’ll discover more of that family story and the characters (your ancestors) within it. As you do, you’ll be like a tree with a strong network of roots holding you steady even in stormy weather.

Getting Started: There are so many ways to explore this—here are three options:

Family Tree: This is a classic and you might have already made one in a school project, but if you haven’t, or if the one you made was when you were much younger, this can be a powerful way to explore your ancestry. The aim isn’t just to figure out the names of each ancestor - look for the flavor of their lives and of their personalities. Where did they grow up? What were things like then and there? What kind of education did they have? Are there any stories known about how they were? Did they choose their job from interest or obligation? How did they meet their husband or wife? What were the turning points in their lives? What were their big struggles? You’re on a quest to understand your family and to find someone from among these characters with whom you feel connected. It helps to draw an actual family tree, either on paper or using an online tool, so that you can visualize how your family’s roots go back in time.  
Documentary: Find someone older than your parents, say an aunt or uncle, grandparents, great-aunts and uncles, etc - and get to know their story. Imagine you are making a documentary movie about their life, and film them answering a series of questions. If they are willing, make the questions personal - ask about their proudest moments, about their struggles, about major life choices they weren’t sure about, about the people in their early lives who influenced them. Sometimes people are just waiting for good questions in order to tell their story.  This could be done through online video during the pandemic.
The Seven Generations Challenge: There is a beautiful challenge, attributed to the Iroquois people, to consider the effect of our actions on people who will live seven generations ahead of us. In other words, to consider how your choices will affect your great, great, great, great, great grandchildren. While this may be hard to imagine, it can bring us into a very special mindset, one in which we see ourselves as part of a very long-term story. We can go both ways, too - what do you think your ancestors, seven generations ago, were thinking and living on a daily basis? What choices did they make which influence you today? At a most basic level, after all, if they did not meet their partner and produce a child, you would not be here.  

Try writing two letters, each of which will travel in time in a sense. Write one letter seven generations back, and another seven generations forward. What would you ask your ancestors? What do you imagine about their lives? And for your future great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren, what would you like them to know about you and your life? How do you think your choices might influence them in some way, might set an example?

Whichever option you choose here, use it to look for an ancestor who really speaks to you. Maybe you saw a photo and they looked like you, or you know from their story that their personality or interests were similar to yours, or for some reason their life catches your interest. When you find this person, write them a letter. Even though they are no longer alive, ask the questions you’ve been wondering about. You may find that you can imagine what they would think in response, from the very different life situation they were in. You may find that their perspective helps you worry less and become more aware of what is special in your everyday life.