Ancestry, does not make you who you are, but it does carry traits from the people you came from in your dna and even your personality. Yet each of us choose to be who we are by the experiences we live through and the people we share them with.
As a man who was born half scottish and half canadian french, I can honestly attest to these facts and the fact that I am a part of both sides of my ancestry.
My mother was a born true blood french canadian woman, with their style and their mouth so to say. Her anger and temper tantrums ran the house I grew up in.
My Father was a scottish man whose family immigrated into New York in the early 1900s. His Father was a banker, and my father became a machinist. He also, had 2 children by my mother and 7 by his second wife.
I was raised by a step-father, who was an Albanian, yes muslim man,who never forced his beliefs or ways on anyone. His anger was always held inside and only triggered by my mom. We kids paid the price for that over the years taking eatings from him when he was told to beat us and when he felt we lied or stole from him.
Now in my immediate family we had 5 of us kids. My elder brother we are not sure who his father is, but me we know, and my three younger siblings we know also. They belong to my step-father for sure. But, as in most families it is not the ancestry that makes each of us different and ourselves, it is the people we associated with growing up and our experiences.
Five of us were released upon the world over the 1970s to the 1980s. The eldest was given all my mom would give him over his life, she even convinced her husband to give the kid a car when he graduated high school. In the end what happened to him, well the car ended up in a swamp on a mountain, he ended up married at a young age of 18 and had two boys, one who is now dead from a drug overdose. he went into corporate business and did ok financially only to be wiped out by his two wives over the years.
Me, well I was always the outcast, light skinned one who stood out in the family and wa sbeat upon by my step father, my mother and my elder brother. They even institutionalized me for two years calling me emotionally unstable. Of course i wasn’t emotionally or mentally ill at all, I had what is now know as attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity, so I bounced off the wall, and I knew I didn’t fit in, with the family I was in, I was the only one light skinned, blond at the time. I overcame a lot to survive over the years, I dropped out of high school in my junior year, and one year later passed the GED, and entered service life. I did three branches over the years, serving 16 years in total, U.S. Army, Army National Guard and Then the U.S. Navy. I got injured aboard a Nay ship on duty, and was discharged Honorably Under medical conditions in the end. While serving, I had a wife and two daughters, who decided when I was discharged, I wasn’t finding a job fast enough for her, and she had mental problems from her childhood, her father raped her and her siblings over the years, there was four of them two boys and two girls. I overcame a false arrest and moved on leaving behind that wife and my two daughters whom I had no place to put to raise on my own.
I moved on to return home, bury two parents and go to college under the College Program of the Veterans Administration. I earned the only college degree in my family at 40 years old. I hold an Associates Degree in Hotel Management. My physical condition deteriorated and I could do the job anymore. I retired at 41 years old on a disability from the military and social security disability, due to my spinal injuries and more.
I own my own home and property, I have a second wife and six grandchildren too. I have two of everything also from tvs to cats and in between. I live day by day taking care of the woman I married the second time and we have been together now over 26 years and still going on. she has breast cancer and it has spread to her bones. We go to chemo and doctors for her constantly these days, and as needed.
I survived lung cancer thanks to the Veteran’s Hospital, they found it in my lungs in 2013. They operated and removed it taking a lobe and one third of my right lung. I am still here folks, and I refuse to go anywhere.
My younger siblings, start with a brother who belonged entirely to my step-father, he grew up to become a con-man, and thief. He took from others without permission and tried to love for free in anyway he could. He did do a brief stint in the U.S. Air Force, yet he died an aids victim in California under an assumed alias for a last name.
The only girl in the family grew up protected by her father and two of her four brothers, myself and the baby of the family. She is a beautiful woman, smart, and into many things these days, from writing to selling all she can, to survive, She did patient care for decades too. Married twice already in her fifties, she has three children by her two husbands, two boys and one girl. She will be fine always for she is smart and quick on her feet, survival is her.
The last son, is doing ok as I see it at least as far as I can see. he grew up protected by his parents, was hit by a car one day and lost some memories of his childhood. he is actually a very talented artist, he draws comic book type art and does so well, he works as far as I know as a technician for a bug control company. As far as I know he has been married at least twice as to children I don’t know and never will, because he doesn’t talk to any of us.
Ancestry didn’t rule what we all did or have become, family did, friends did, experiences did, not ancestry. Ancestry though is good to know, so you know where and what kind of a family you came from originally only and what traits may be in your DNA.
So, when you do your Ancestry don’t expect to be royal because your family tree says so, like I found in my, that went back to King James the fourth of Scotland. Or, the fact your other came from poor french stock out of the streets of Daphne, France. Doesn’t matter folks, for those influences are gone way before you, it does matter what you do to survive, to live properly and what you overcome to better yourself. Ancestry is the past, today is you and what you do each day, how you live, who you touch and who touches you all count. Be you, Be Honest, Be real, and Stay happy and live well!
Macattack56's Blog 