Why History

There are 2 kinds of people who research history and genealogy. One group is interested in credentials, the glorious achievements of our nation’s founders, the heroics of generals who triumphed in battle, the lords and ladies to whom they are distantly related. I belong to the second group, interested in the brick makers who paved the roads of our cities as much as the tycoons who paid for the paving. I think we can learn from the struggles of an ordinary guy a 100 years ago, or 500 years ago, because most of us have more in common with a man trying to put bread on the table than with Lord So-and-So. I first got into genealogy about 25 years ago, when my father made a few trips to the LDS archives and proudly declared that our family was descended from Sir de la Croix. He believed his aunt’s folklore that he was a cousin of President Woodrow Wilson and never tried to prove it with documentation. It was enough for him to link himself to famous and illustrious persons of the past. I think it gave him a sense of validation, that although he was a middle-class regular guy who worked a salary job all his life, he had a bloodline to be proud of. After my father passed away, I discovered that we really aren’t related to Sir de la Croix but our line comes down from the lord’s little brother (both named Pierre, and confused in the church records.) I cannot for the life of me make a connection to Woodrow Wilson, as our direct ancestor immigrated to the U.S. about 100 years later than Wilson’s forebears. But what I did find, in my research, was inspiration from French ancestors who survived the British assault on Montreal, or the Wilsons who worked to keep their family together by traveling from England to Canada to Ohio to Virginia. These simple people, with their struggles, their ironies, and their tragedies, are my payoff.

I’ve applied my genealogy skills to researching the family backgrounds of John de Saulles and Blanca Errazuriz. My goal is not to be the TMZ of dead celebrities, but to see them as real people with real lives.