Opening Up a Can of Worms

Have you ever looked into your family history, stringing out more that one of those John begat Joseph who begat Jerry lists like the lineages we find in the Bible?  I mean have you done one of those searches that actually tell you what John and Joseph and Jerry actually did and who they were besides serving as your second or third of fourth great-grandfather?

A few years ago I did a little of that research and found my great-great grandfather and grandmother’s graves, John and Johanna Brennan.  It appears that they only lived a few more years in Bradford County, Pennsylvania after they emigrated from Ireland with some of their children – two sons who then fought in the American Civil War.

Then I checked out my mother’s line, in this country for centuries and found pharmacists, and bricklayers and photographers, and one wife-beater – remember that can of worms?

What came to me as I thought through what I have discovered through a few clicks of a mouse and what my daughter found with several more serious clicks and much research, was what would people discover about me? Would they see it as a can of worms, or would they be grateful for that kind of forbear.  I know I was encouraged to read about my forbear, Mary Amelia Hay, who was called a lady doctor, and who started the first post office, the first elementary school and the first boarding school and the first church in the settlement where she lived moved to do all of these things in Kansas back in the 1800’s. 

What evidence will there be of my faith, of my desire to honor God?  And how will thinking about this legacy I will leave affect the years before me, as God alone numbers our days?  Enough to write for the moment, more to think about!