Lessons Learned from My Ancestors

Recently my son had a project in school where they were to investigate their family heritage and report it back to the class. Having been designated the family keeper of the records after my grandmother passed on; I was his “go to man”. And boy oh boy did I go to town!!!

For many generations, my grandmother’s side has kept an extensive record in binders of the family history, including all brothers, sisters, parents, uncles, aunts, etc. It was daunting! Pages upon pages of typewritten notes, some hand written amendments and some really old pictures. You know the kind they try to emulate at the amusement parks when they get you to dress up. Not even black and white but that sepia brownish colour.

Prior to this project, my knowledge of my family history was rather limited. I knew I had some Scottish blood in me from my mom’s side. Her red hair, temperament and my grandfather’s singing “a Roamin’ in the Gloamin’” tipped me off, although I suspect the song is not even Scottish, but Irish or Welsh but he made up a Scottish accent and sang it loud. He had the most peculiar eating habits as well. One of his favorite snacks was to have green onions, put some salt in his hand and dip and eat them. Don’t know if that is a Scottish thing or just him but since Scots eat a lot of weird things, I’ll chalk it up to that. Last but not least, the last name Bruce and watching Braveheart led me to believe that I am descended from the Great Robert the Bruce. Through the magic of the internet, I was not only able to trace back to Robert the Bruce, but since it is a royal line, the records are quite complete. I was able to trace the Bruce line all the way back to the original Viking Ancestors back to the year 130 AD. If you ever hook into a royalty line, it can go back quite far! On my ex-wife’s side, there is a section of her tree that goes back to the Capet Royalty in France back to about 600 AD.

Sadly, the information on my dad’s side was far less obvious. Even trying to trace my last name of Sheldon came to an abrupt end after my grandfather. Unfortunately, he had passed away many years ago. I had no idea of what to expect on that side. Then, one of my long lost family members out in British Columbia passed away and my father was given some notes from her direct family that she kept, telling of their journey to Canada and life in the prairies. In there was a story of how they had lived in a sod hut as was common practice for the first Ukrainian settlers as they arrived in Western Canada in the early 1800’s. So I was Ukrainian! And my last name is supposed to be Kornichenko. No one knows why my grandfather changed his name. We can only assume that he thought it sounded a little too Russian during the Cold war years. Either that or he had an identity crisis. In fact, in reading my Great Aunt Vera Evodomenko’s notes, my grandfather was born Paul Kornichenko, changed his name to Wayne Sheldon, and was often called Joe by his wife. So now I had some pieces of information on both sides of my family. Off I went to make my son’s family tree.

The first thing I learned is that you have to pick and choose which type of pedigree you want to display. There are many types, such as the chart style my grandmother used. I found leafing through the pages back and forth tiresome so I preferred the tree style as pictured below:

Prior to this project, my knowledge of my family history was rather limited. I knew I had some Scottish blood in me from my mom’s side. Her red hair, temperament and my grandfather’s singing “a Roamin’ in the Gloamin’” tipped me off, although I suspect the song is not even Scottish, but Irish or Welsh but he made up a Scottish accent and sang it loud. He had the most peculiar eating habits as well. One of his favorite snacks was to have green onions, put some salt in his hand and dip and eat them. Don’t know if that is a Scottish thing or just him but since Scots eat a lot of weird things, I’ll chalk it up to that. Last but not least, the last name Bruce and watching Braveheart led me to believe that I am descended from the Great Robert the Bruce. Through the magic of the internet, I was not only able to trace back to Robert the Bruce, but since it is a royal line, the records are quite complete. I was able to trace the Bruce line all the way back to the original Viking Ancestors back to the year 130 AD. If you ever hook into a royalty line, it can go back quite far! On my ex-wife’s side, there is a section of her tree that goes back to the Capet Royalty in France back to about 600 AD.

Sadly, the information on my dad’s side was far less obvious. Even trying to trace my last name of Sheldon came to an abrupt end after my grandfather. Unfortunately, he had passed away many years ago. I had no idea of what to expect on that side. Then, one of my long lost family members out in British Columbia passed away and my father was given some notes from her direct family that she kept, telling of their journey to Canada and life in the prairies. In there was a story of how they had lived in a sod hut as was common practice for the first Ukrainian settlers as they arrived in Western Canada in the early 1800’s. So I was Ukrainian! And my last name is supposed to be Kornichenko. No one knows why my grandfather changed his name. We can only assume that he thought it sounded a little too Russian during the Cold war years. Either that or he had an identity crisis. In fact, in reading my Great Aunt Vera Evodomenko’s notes, my grandfather was born Paul Kornichenko, changed his name to Wayne Sheldon, and was often called Joe by his wife. So now I had some pieces of information on both sides of my family. Off I went to make my son’s family tree.

The first thing I learned is that you have to pick and choose which type of pedigree you want to display. There are many types, such as the chart style my grandmother used. I found leafing through the pages back and forth tiresome so I preferred the tree style as pictured below:

This chart does not give as much information as my grandmother’s notes. You can include siblings in a tree format but it quickly grows way out of control, like a weed that has taken over your garden. And that is precisely what I had thought of my sister as I was growing up, so I decided to do what I could not do when I was young, and decided to not include her (or any other siblings). As it was, it got very confusing. On my father’s side, there was some information going back to the mid 1800’s and on my mother’s side, we had info going back to just before 1800 and pictures to boot! I had one lady, born in 1799 and she lived to the age of 90! That is quite impressive by today’s standards never mind back then.

There are many things that when tracing your ancestry that become apparent. Not only are you learning about your history, but also geography. It wasn’t as bad on my mother’s side as I am now the sixth generation in Ontario, Canada. I’m pretty familiar with Ontario geography having lived here most my life and not much has changed, at least in terms of which towns were which, maybe just the size of the towns. Worst case is that in the really old records, some towns were listed as being either in Upper or Lower Canada, which thanks to our great educational system; I kind of knew what they were talking about. My dad’s side was a little more confusing as I am not as familiar with Western Canada and my knowledge of European geography is about a grade 9 level (which is better than most of today’s “let me google that” geographically handicapped kids today, but that is a different article). But here is where it gets interesting. Not only do I have to know current Geography but also history as well. I found many of my ancestors to be from Chortitza, South Russia (Old Colony). What the heck is this? And these were the relatives with names like Strauss, Braun, Voth and Kroeker. Those names sure sounded German to me. Turns out Katherine the Great of Russia enticed Mennonite immigrants to settle in an area of modern day Southern Ukraine, by the Dnieper River, north of Crimea.

Then things get really interesting. Where they came from is West Prussia. Where the heck is Prussia? Prussia does not exist anymore. It was once an area, most easily thought of as a German Empire in the age of Empires but not actually an Empire. Confused? I was. Especially when I looked at modern day maps and discovered that my dad’s ancestors were German, who moved to modern day Ukraine and who came from an area which is modern day Poland.

Now I am into a week-long study of European politics, wars and history. I now understand a little more about World War 1 and 2 thanks to this, even though my ancestors were long since in Canada before any of that happened. I am of the age where I have seen the collapse of the Cold War and the USSR, etc. so I know what it is like to have fluid boundaries and countries popping up out of nowhere, redefined boundaries, and a drastic change in world politics. But what I was not aware of is that this has been happening ALL the time. This is nothing new. And it is still happening. The current crisis in Syria and resulting confusion is a direct result of how a country’s boundaries may not necessarily reflect its cultural differences.

And that brings me to my last point which was the real eye opener for me. I have noticed through my research that immigration/emigration has been around as long as there have been countries. And today’s current Syrian refugee crisis is not unheard of in anything other than sheer numbers. Immigration always seems to occur in waves. In my particular instance, the Ukrainian immigration to Canada was all about the same time. I have talked to many Ukrainian descended peoples and their ancestors all tended to come to Canada at roughly the same time as mine. I made the mistake of digging into my ex-wife’s heritage online so my kids had a better understanding on both sides and a lot of her ancestors were Dutch (hence my kids’ blond hair, it wasn’t the mailman after all!). And they all seemed to come over to an area in New York all about the 1600’s. In fact, New York used to be called New Amsterdam. Wow! There is that geography lesson again!

I invite you to go online and search your family heritage. Now more than ever, it is easier than it ever was and you can go so much further back than ever before. I was able to trace the ex’s lineage in most parts to the mid 1400’s. This coming from some very little info she had. She did not even know her grandparent’s birthdays. Amazing! A word of warning though….if you have ANY OCD tendencies at all, there is no end to this. It can go on and on and on and on and on and on…….