Don’t delay in that research
“Tempus fugit,” the Latin saying goes, whether we want it to or not.
Time flies.
And when it has flown its full course, all of us — The Legal Genealogist included — will suffer losses from which there may be no real recovery.
One of my most treasured memories is accepting an invitation from distant cousins I met online to attend a Buchanan family reunion in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, many years ago. I can’t find the photos this morning, but it had to be at least as far back as 2005, and probably farther back than that.
It was held at an outdoor park in Spruce Pine, so I showed up in sneakers and casual slacks… only to find all of my North Carolina cousins dressed to the nines. It was a momentary “ulp” moment for me — and not even a glitch for them as they welcomed me in with open arms.
There were moments from that get-together that will stick in my mind forever.
• The moment a cousin whose Buchanan father had died in a railroad accident when she was a toddler leading her mother to move away — more than 60 years earlier — spoke through her tears of reconnecting with her father’s side of the family.
• The moment I saw my own name on a forty-foot-long family tree chart my cousins had prepared.
• And the moment that the laptops came out. The genealogist cousins grabbed a table at the front of the picnic area and got serious. Jamie Buchanan, my cousin in the Navy. Rhonda Gunter, a Buchanan descendant who taught genealogy at a local community college. Me, with my fledgling research into my Buchanan roots.
And Joel Buchanan.
Joel was a joy to meet — a real live nuclear scientist who’d co-founded the Nuclear Safety Information Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s and served as director of the Nuclear Operations Analysis Center.
And oh how passionate he was about our shared Buchanan heritage.
Both of us could trace our descent from James and Isabella (Wilson) Buchanan, who were in Charles County, Maryland, back in the early to mid-1700s, through their son Arthur. I trace my line to Arthur’s son William; Joel descends from Arthur’s son Arthur.
Our Buchanans went from Maryland into northern Virginia and ultimately into western North Carolina. Joel’s line strayed back across the border into Virginia and then into Tennessee when Joel was very young. Mine — well, mine was footloose: from North Carolina to Kentucky to Iowa to Texas. But both tracing back to those early Maryland settlers.
Taking our Buchanans back across the pond, however… that was a whole ‘nother issue — not a simple matter at all. There’s simply no documentation any of us has ever found of James’ origins. Was he the original immigrant or a native-born Marylander? We don’t know. Where were the Buchanans from? We had no proof.
So the Buchanan men from many branches of the family did what only Buchanan men could do: they tested their YDNA.
Joel in particular went the whole distance: he did what’s called the Big Y test from Family Tree DNA.
And we now have a working theory based in large measure on tests by people like my cousin Joel: because he’s a match, in that looking-at-all-the-nooks-and-crannies YDNA test, to a documented descendant of the Buchanan Chiefly Line via the Drummakill Cadet Branch.
What that means, in plain English, is that we have a particular part of Scotland, in the Loch Lomond region, and a particular clan, to look at for our origins.
A priceless gift to all the rest of us that only Joel and other Buchanan men could give us.
So it was with great joy that, this past Saturday, I discovered that Jane Buchanan — Joel’s wife — was in attendance when I spoke to the Middle Tennessee Genealogical Society, and we realized that her husband and I were not just cousins but had met at that family get-together all those years ago.
I’ve meant, for so long, to get back in touch with many of those Buchanan researchers to share what I’ve found in the interim, and to see what else they’ve found, but you know how it is, right? Life gets in the way…
Until — all too often — it’s too late.
As, I discovered Saturday to my dismay, it is with Joel.
Jane told me that we lost Joel, just this past May, suddenly and unexpectedly, there in Tennessee.
His obituary is still online at Legacy.com. It tells me how much I could have learned from my cousin Joel if I’d taken the time… if I’d done better at staying in touch…
So I pause a moment, this Monday morning, to remind all of you — and more particularly to remind myself — tempus fugit. Those cousins will not be out there to share information with forever.
Reach out.
Share your information.
Share your stories and data — and ask for theirs.
Take that DNA test, ask your cousins to do the same, and share the results.
Before it’s too late.
There are so many questions I wish I could have asked my parents and grandparents, but I wasn’t into genealogy then. Today I heard a comment on the radio….”ask the oldest person in your family to tell about the oldest person they knew in the family”. What a great way to learn the stories.
No question that talking to the oldest family members is the best way to get going.
Well cousin, this one got me to thinking. Gonna post this URL on my Facebook to all my cousins (and boy is that a bunch of Baker’s and Burn’s). We are all in the “short rows” as the saying goes. We need to tell those stories, document them for the generations following and get those DNA tests done and post those photos. Make it easier for those future genealogists of America tracing and adding to our family roots.
So true but so difficult – we had a reunion like that in 2001 and we have continued the mail list but so many have changed their emails and failed to stay in touch. It is a loss of family and friendships.
Too true. And memories fade as well. I am very happy I interviewed my father’s sister, who just passed away at age 102, beginning twenty years ago. In recent years, she suffered from dementia. And the last time I visited her (she lived 3000 miles away), I brought a DNA kit, and I have her DNA as well. And now she is gone, the last of my father’s generation
Good for you for doing this while she was alive. I waited too long with many of my family’s oldest generation, and so many of them were gone before autosomal testing was even available… 🙁
A very moving story Judy. I began to trace my family history because of the many stories that my father had recited to me and my brothers while I was a young kid.
About 7-8 years ago I asked my father to write these stories down in a notepad, and I would type them up on the computer. I knew that I would have to do this before the stories would be lost in time. I knew details from some of these stories but not at the level that my dad did. The sad thing though is that he knows that his memory isn’t as sharp as it was and he has forgotten some that were told to him by his mother and father.
Anyway, because of this exercise it has led me to trace our family history, acting on the research that my father had done himself.
Judy,
So true, and such a loss. Sometimes it’s a lack of time, and sometimes, frankly, a lack of courage. We lost our mother last year, at age 100. She told us a lot, but think of all the stories we never thought to ask! My brother and I really wanted to ask her to do her DNA, as she was the last of her generation. But we were afraid to, as we didn’t think she’d understand, or would think spitting into a test tube was yucky. Now our chance is gone, and we’re the oldest generation. So don’t let those chances go by! At least we’ve done ours.
Our beloved family reunions have stopped, because nobody left has both the health to do the organizing, and the interest.
One of my friends wants to get DNA tests for herself and her boyfriend for Christmas, even though she knows she’ll have to do the online work for him. He’s got some interesting questions about his father who disappeared during his childhood, that he’d like answers for. I know I’ll have to get her started. It’s worth doing, though, especially now with the sales. His kids will be grateful if they can learn the answers to that mystery, and hopefully get interested in genealogy in a broader sense.
Doris
Last week I had the rare treat for starting the week listening to Judy talk about DNA Sunday at the FTDNA Project Administrators’ Conference and of ending the week on Saturday by listening to Judy talk about DNA to the Middle Tennessee Genealogy Society’s Annual Seminar. Quite a week.
Thanks Judy
I have included your blog in INTERESTING BLOGS in FRIDAY FOSSICKING at
https://thatmomentintime-crissouli.blogspot.com/2017/11/friday-fossicking-24th-nov-2017.html
Thank you, Chris
This was a great article. I had my DNA tested bc I was adopted and wanted to get my medical history ONLY. All of a sudden all these Buchanans started showing up. As first cousins etc. I connected with one very helpful person and we have a good idea who the father is. I’m 62 and the father(married) was in sales with a striking personality ( according to the agency papers) who travelled to Baltimore and had an affair. It’s interesting to say the least, but I still only want my medical history.