Old times, same genes.

My grandparents are the two on the far left of each row.  I didn't really know them at all, as Grandpa Paul (Cool Hand Luke, there) died when I was 4 and Grandma Velma (originally Wilma!) wasn't really so interested in me - which also really didn't bother me so much, I guess.  I hadn't seen her or spoken to her in years before she died and the last communication we had was about her recipe for chicken paprikash; it was also nice to speak with her.  I can't say I mourn the lost relationship so much as I am curious about our similarities, which may or may not exist.  I also have the world's most cutest and kindest Grandma Madeline that ever existed, so that helps, too.

Yet can we not agree that we are physically similar, despite of course, my roundness?  I have spent my entire life laboring under this annoying fallacy that I am a carbon copy of my mother, from the shape of our feet to our entire "constitution" to our brain chemistry.  This sort of belief itself is of course the kind that comes along with jargon like "constitution."  To proverbially beat the dead horse, yes, I just threw up in my mouth (it used to be such a good expression, but I read it left and right on various blogs that it just aint so special anymore, thus the proverbial beating and not the beating of the proverbial dead horse).  However, I see so much of myself in my grandmother - in the shape of her forearms, her shoulders, her neck, and really, her entire face.

My mother was adopted and I have virtually no knowledge of my father's family.  In a way, I realize this doesn't matter so incredibly much, but I am curious.  Who are my ancestors beyond my grandparents and what did they work as?  What did they find joy or turmoil in?  What was their middle ground, average everyday existence like, and where specifically did they come from?  Did they believe in god or were they secularized?  I know my great Aunt Margaret (grandma's sis?) was a lawyer.  Even that knowledge, the fact that I had a female relative who was a lawyer - back in those days - and the fact that she and her husband were disbarred is a shimmering jewel of delight in my brain.  I'd be interested to know if they ever thought that their great niece, in 2011, would find humor, much less delight in that.

These two bachelors were my great uncles (dad's dad's side).  What were they up to?

I'd like to have something to offer my future kids in the form of a little family history, at least.  Not that I want to or even can compete with my ol' man: shit, he can trace his family back to the 1500s.