What do you know about your family’s history and culture?

 

The short answer, not much. The long answer, we’ve been so very wrong about our culture in the past. Ever since I was little my family swore we are from German descent. With very little proof to go on, we all kind of just accepted that. A couple of years ago my sister took one of those DNA tests to get to the bottom of it. We’re British. Like, hardcore drinking tea and waving to the queen British. And you know what? That makes a whole lot of sense.

It’s always so interesting to me how you can just go through your life not really knowing your history. I only know the names of my grandparents’ parents and not much else beyond that. There have been attempts by distant cousins to trace our lineage, but without much success. But even more interestingly, I’m not that curious to know more. I’m not sure why but I’ve never felt that pull to know if we came over on the Mayflower of if we’re related to some famous person in history. I’ve always been a “live in the now” person and that information won’t really change what life is like these days. I’ve never been that curious.

I have, however, always been enviable of people who have heirlooms or documentation of their family history. I think I’m more interested in the artifacts rather than knowing who my great, great, great, aunt was. Yet I document my life like a crazy person. What a conundrum…

This post is part of a 31 day writing prompts series I’m doing. Find all the prompts in this blog post.