I’ve been researching my genealogy. It’s important to me, in part, because as an adoptee, basic information about who and where I came from was a secret. That’s a recipe for heaping some heavy stuff on an impressionable child and creating an adult who is hyper-sensitive to feelings of abandonment. Now, however, thanks to DNA testing and ancestry research, the information comes faster than I can digest it. I feel like I’m drinking from a firehose at times.
Recently, I compiled the names of my grandmothers, all the way back to my 5x great-grandmothers. There are some missing, but it’s still an impressive collection. These women are represented by names, dates, and places, but their lives were so much more than that. Women’s stories have mostly been told through their fathers, husbands, and children, but their lives were as important as anyone else. It’s sad to me that their essence has been lost alongside tales of male experiences.
As I looked at this compilation of women’s names, I couldn’t help but think that I was standing there, in part, as a result of choices they made—then I stopped myself. These women likely made very few choices on their own. They were made for them, mostly by their fathers and husbands and, in some cases, their sons.
We live in a different world now, thank the good Lord.
I would cherish even a snippet about any of these women, giving even the tiniest insight into who they were. The information I compile is interesting, but it barely scratches the surface. I can make assumptions about what their lives were like based on journeys and stories about conflicts their men were involved in. But the real stuff, the heart things I’d be most interested in, that’s all gone forever.
So.
Cast your thoughts to the future, and some as-yet-unborn grandniece or granddaughter of yours digging around in her genealogy looking for answers. What might remain of you for her to uncover? We have choices now that our grandmothers never had and, in most cases, time and resources they couldn’t have fathomed. Why not use some of it to leave something behind for her?
I’ve put together a resource with 22 jumping-off points to capture stories about your life. You don’t have to be a writer or have plans to write a memoir. You just have to have the desire to preserve a few stories about your life for the benefit of your children, grandchildren, and those who come after them. This is my gift to you so you can leave a gift for them.
Request this free downloadable guide here, and take as much or as little time as you choose to capture snippets of your life for those who come after you and feel free to share it with someone else. It might be a good project for the long, dark days of winter that aren’t all that far off. 😊 (Apologies for saying the W word in August.)
Such interesting timing of your offer, Linda. I signed up to receive it – thank you! Since January of this year, I’ve been working on my mom’s story of being adopted, plus how her being adopted has affected me as her daughter.
Three years ago at the age of eighty she’d written out her adoptive story, giving a copy to each of us kids, so all I had to do was transcribe that into my computer. I’ve made good head way with it all and getting to the point of finishing the first draft.
But within that story is the family lineage of her birth mother, plus her biological aunts, and the trauma of sexual abuse within the family, and outside of it. Deeply heartbreaking. So much of what I’ve come to realize through epigenetics that I have carried this trauma within my own being.
At one point, I’d find myself grieving for my biological grandmother and great aunts for what they’d endured – because likely they were told never to speak of it.
With my last biological aunt who passed in the summer of 2025, I found myself wishing I’d known more about them. What their joys may have been and what they felt. But also recognizing part of my soul’s path was to give voice to not only my story, but my mom’s and theirs too, and how that is woven throughout the epigenetics of our lives.
Looking forward to checking out the guide. Thank you again!
You’re most welcome, Barb. We both know there are no coincidences. Love how your mom wrote out her story and how you, in turn, are working on another facet of yours. I’m so very sorry for the trauma in her life and how it was passed on to you. I still have the first email your mom sent me after she read Two Hearts, and treasure it.
Thanks! Haha! The “W” word! Also the “S” word…(*Snow*)…
Shhhhh!!!!
Thank you, LInda, for being so generous as to share the writing guide with us. I just signed up. This is timely for me, as well. My husband and I have been working with an estate planner to get affairs in order. As well as the legal documents required, he has encouraged us to think about the legacy we are leaving for our children, and provided a place to write something if we wish to include in our papers. There are other ideas if we choose not to write, but of course that is what I’m drawn to.