What makes a family? More specifically, what made our family what it is today? How did the descendants of American Indians, Scottish Highlanders, French-Canadian Trappers, Irish Aristocrats, Luxembourg farmers and Latter Day Saints merge together to form a single family? I hadn’t thought much about these questions until a chain of events led me to a rediscovery and new appreciation for all the generations and branches of our family - past, present and into the future.

While I was in college, I received a letter from my father’s cousin. She enclosed a family tree going back about five generations. It was interesting enough – but a list of dates and names for some of my ancestors meant little to me at the time; and I filed it away with tax returns, college transcripts, and other records.

Six years ago my husband Jim and I decided to send in an application to be on a television show called “The Amazing Race”. It sounded fun and challenging. We figured that at the very least it would provide a free whirlwind tour of the world and at best a chance to win a million dollars. After waiting on pins and needles for a call from the producers of the show, I decided to check out their Internet website to see if the selections had been made. There were close to one hundred people sending electronic messages back and forth in the network-sponsored chat room. I was immediately drawn to an individual called “lacook” who had applied for the show with a business partner. She and I exchanged information over the next couple of days. LA sent me the address for her family home page and when I saw that her maiden name, it rang a distant bell. I dug out the old family tree that my second cousin had mailed me, and there it was – My great-grandmother, Mary, had that same last name. Thinking it nothing more than an odd coincidence, I emailed LA, and after a series of “WHAT”, “NO”, “You’ve got to be kidding”, and “Oh my Gosh” – we sorted it all out and discovered we were third cousins. What are the odds?

This chance encounter led to a pilgrimage of sorts, back to a little town in Minnesota for a reunion with a branch of our family that none of us even knew existed. It also led to the start of a quest to put together all the pieces of the genealogical puzzle for our family. I wanted to know these men and women – my grandparents and their grandparents – as far back as I could travel through time. I wanted to learn about their countries of origin, understand why they came to the United States, and discover some of the challenges and joys they faced in their daily lives. Most important, I wanted to gain some insights about their values so that I might understand a little bit more about myself and my own family dynamics.

The most difficult part of this journey has been knowing when to pause, collect the treasures of our heritage, and share them with the people I love – my family. There is still so much that I may never know; but to paraphrase Walt Whitman, I have found “a few square inches on my face for the traits of all my ancestors, for the expression of all my history”.

I researched and compiled information about my family over a period of just six months – a feat that would have been impossible without the genealogy resources on the Internet and the contributions of many wonderful people.

My Dad's cousin had spent the better part of her life researching and charting on branch of my family. Her daughter was kind enough to share her mother’s files with me, including information about our Native American ancestors.

LA organized the family reunion where we were able to meet over 75 family members. The visit to Minnesota was a step back into our family’s past – and gave us the chance to visit family homesteads and gravesites – as well as the local historical society museum. County histories, written in the late 1800s, included stories about many of our ancestors; as did other historical accounts that I found in a little bookstore in the town where my grandfather was born.

 The free family tree software that I downloaded from www.ancestry.com provided another windfall of information. Once I had entered the names of the few ancestors that I knew, the program connected with a “world family tree” and automatically filled in links with other family trees. This led to the discovery of many distant cousins – all were more than willing to share what they knew about their particular branch of our family tree. There was a wealth of information available on some family lines; while other branches required considerable detective work – scanning hundreds of federal census records; reading passenger manifests from sailing ships; searching military, church and cemetery records; and putting out calls for help to various family search bulletin boards.

“Look-up” Volunteers in many small towns will helped search courthouse, library, church and newspaper records not yet available electronically. Through on-line contacts, I received old photographs and copies of wills, marriage licenses, and correspondence.

 One of my uncles shared some precious family photographs, documents and heirlooms, including a family bible that chronicled generations of family events. Another uncle shared his research and some family photo albums.

 I tracked down and contacted every living relative - Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and, of course, my parents, who spent hours on the telephone with me, sharing their memories, answering my questions, and helping the names on our family tree come to life once again for us and for the generations that will follow us.  

Generation after generation, my ancestors were not the first sons or the privileged daughters. They didn't inherit the castle or the manor house. They were adventurous and willing to take a chance to make their lives better.

On my father's side: My early Scottish and French ancestors arrived in North America without a penny in their pockets. They were trappers and voyagers who married Native American women. Their wives were free-spirited women who were savvy in the fur trade and comfortable living without luxuries and refinements. I would have loved to have known them. My Luxembourg ancestor did not inherit the family farm. Land was scarce and there were few opportunities, so he crossed an ocean and homesteaded in the Midwest where he met the daughter of Frenchmen who'd fled a revolution.

On my mother's side: The eldest son of farmer on the Isle of Jersey followed the love of his life to Jamestown, Virginia - against the wishes of his family.  Another branch of our family arrived in Virginia to escape religious persecution against Welsh Puritans.  Yet another ancestor emigrated from England to Massachusetts to build a better life for his family - several generations later found them homesteading in the wilds of Montana. Our family tree includes the son of an Irish Knight who fell in love with a devout mormon from Liverpool. I'm proud to have so many relatives who stood up for their convictions and were willing to take a risk on a brand new country.

Isn't this the story of most of us in the United States? We are the children of the younger sons; born without the silver spoon but more than making up for it with bravery, perserverance, and hard work.

Those are my family values and I couldn't feel more proud.