One student had a grandfather who fought in WWII and interviewed him. One girl was a direct descendant of Robert E. Lee. Another girl's great-grandfather was a Native American who had fought at Little Bighorn.
These young people found out something about themselves when they wrote the stories of the past and collected items and photos, if possible.
Most schools, even high schools, no longer teach history. This state of affairs is purposeful, to create a people without identity, without a past.
We all have ancestors, which may sound like a silly thing to state, but many people in America have no clue as to family history.
My family is not "close" in the sense that we visit each other often or even live close to each other, which we do not. We fall into the 50% of the Americans who live 50 miles or more away from parents.
Some families have members who live close to each other. Some live in different countries, or even on different continents. But, wherever people live, I sincerely hope they know from whence they came and who the families were in the past.
Some people are adopted, like my niece, who is from China. Those children grow up with two sets of parents, or with one set who are the ones they come to know and love. Of course, a Chinese child knows, if being raised in a Caucasian family, that she is adopted, and, of course, her parents have told her the story of her adoption.
Still, the child wants to find her mother some day. This is natural and good. We need to know our ancestors.
But, many families have been torn apart by war, calamity, even poverty. I think of the English Civil War, which divided families into Royalists and Parliamentarians, the Anglo-Catholics and the Puritans. I know of a family which became divided between Catholicism and Protestantism, and still is divided today after 400 plus years.
But, they share the same ancestors, which they can trace to the 12th century. Most people I meet in the States can, at the most, trace their heritage back to the 18th century, or the mid-18th century. Some have lost all their history, coming over as displaced persons when children and barely remembering their past.
Two people I knew in Canada, now both dead, came from Czechoslovakia, managing to get away as young teens just as the Nazis took over in the sell-out of the Munich Agreement. The woman I knew, married to the man who had another story, never saw her family again after her father told her to get on her bicycle and travel to Switzerland somehow. She left just as the German army came into her town, and she never saw her father, mother and sister again. Her sister just "disappeared". Years later, I tried to locate her sister through various agencies online, but there was no history to be found.
Finally, people helped this young teen get to England, and then to Canada. But, she lost her heritage, her history, her ancestral stories.
Many Millennials have no clue as to their family histories. Some parents have not passed down any information, except vague stories of some being German, or Swiss, or English.
We are part of the past, as well as the present, and the future. I cannot help but believe that if people knew who their ancestors were and who they are in relation to Europe, America would not be so provincial and ignorant about world affairs today.
If you do not know your ancestors, try and find out. If you do, treasure the past they lived which is part of your genes, your personality, perhaps your physical appearance.
It is good to know who we are from those who went before us.
