You Are the Sum of Your Ancestors’ Dreams

It’s no secret that I’m a big proponent of working with one’s ancestors – hell, I wrote a whole-ass book about it. I talk to my people on the regular, and equally important, I listen to what they have to say. Every once in a while, though, something resonates with me in a profound and impactful way. Such was the case this past week – and no, not election related, thank the gods – and I wanted to share a few thoughts with you.

I’ve always been in love with the entire state of Virginia. It’s always held, for me, a sense of coming home, as though I’d been there before, and I feel a deep connection with the land – the mountains, the rivers, the valleys. It’s my retirement goal, in a few years, truth be told. So, imagine my delight about thirty-odd years ago when I learned that my people had settled there a couple of centuries back. Some of my maternal kinfolk arrived on the shores of this country right before 1700 – they settled in coastal Virginia, and then as the neighborhood got too crowded, they moved inland to the area around Bedford… and when that got too busy for them, they headed out to the frontier in Kentucky, part of the mass migration of settlers that headed through the Cumberland Gap around 1805-ish. I love the Blue Ridge and the Appalachian mountains, and I’m sure it’s due in no small part to some sort of generations-old ancestral tie to those wild mountains.

One of the other places in Virginia that’s always held a spot in my heart and soul is Colonial Williamsburg. I’ve visited a couple of times, the last being about two years ago, when I walked the decks of the replica of the Susan Constant at Jamestown, and wondered what it must have been like for our country’s earliest Europeans. I love Williamsburg, with its rich history and its cobbled streets and wide open commons, and its strong acknowledgement of its own history – warts and all.

About a week ago, I took a plunge into researching the ancestry of my 5x great grandmother – she was born in Cumberland, Virginia on the cusp of the American Revolution, and married into the batch of relatives who migrated westward in the early 1800s. She eventually died in Kentucky, in 1845, and likely never saw Virginia again once she’d moved out there. So I got to diggin’ into Granny Nancy’s background, and for the first time was able to unearth some of her history. That’s where things got even more interesting.

Turn’s out Nancy’s own 5x great-ancestor (who would be my 11x great grandfather, for those of you keeping score at home) got to North America far earlier than I’d even realized any of my people had done. Thomas Farmer arrived in Virginia in 1616, a good four years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. He came on the Virginia Company’s ship Tryall, and was living in Jamestown in March, 1622, when there was a Native American raid that killed over four hundred English settlers. A few years after surviving the attack, he became a member of the Virginia House of Burgess, representing the Neck of Land, an area of a thousand acres, more or less, that the James River meanders around, which is now called Farrars Island. Thomas fathered at least three sons before dying in 1665, and the eldest – Thomas II – would eventually become Nancy’s great-something grandfather.

Here’s where things began to coalesce for me.

As I sat at my laptop, in my nice comfy house, with music playing in the background and a cup of hot, fresh coffee on my desk, I realized that if a man like Thomas, born in the late 1500s, could see my life, he’d be astonished. I have enough clothing that I can wear a different outfit every day for two weeks if I so choose, but Thomas likely had two good shirts for working in, with another for Sunday best, and a couple of pairs of trousers. I have more shoes than I can even count – because I’m a total whore for cute boots – but Thomas and his peers would have had a single pair, or two at most. If I want coffee or tea to drink, it’s ready in a matter of minutes – I don’t have to build a fire and haul water up from the river to brew it.

When I’m hungry, I have a box in my kitchen that’s full of cold food, which I can pop in the oven and make a meal of in under an hour, with little labor involved. If the weather is chilly, I flick a switch on my wall and my house warms up instantly, thanks to the big gas furnace in my basement. When it’s hot outside, while I don’t have central air conditioning – my house was built around the same time as the Titanic – what I do have is several high-speed window fans that bring a breeze through my rooms and make it comfortable.

If I need to go somewhere, I hop in my cute little Nissan and hit the road – I recently went to a funeral four hundred miles away, and it took me about seven hours to get home. How long would it have taken Thomas Farmer to make this journey, there and back again? Weeks, perhaps.

I have shelf upon shelf of books to read, I have shops galore less than two miles from me, and I have the ability to text or call friends all over the world with just a tap of my screen. Thomas might have owned a couple of books – probably his bible, and not much else – and if he needed supplies, he’d have had to wait for them to be delivered on the next ship. If he wanted to correspond with his father, back in England, he’d write a letter – if he could write at all – and send it off, although it likely wouldn’t arrive at its destination for months.

I’m not rich, by any stretch of the imagination. But for a man like Thomas Farmer, arriving on the shores of a new world four hundred years ago, to look at me, he’d see success, and bounty, and great abundance. He’d see a woman whose home office is probably the size of the small hut he’d have shared in with a few other men when he landed at Jamestown. He’d probably disapprove of my tattoos, my penchant for low-cut tops, and my prolific use of profanity, but overall, he’d see someone who had more than he could ever imagine, not even in his wildest dreams.

When I tell people we are the sum of what their ancestors aspire to, this is what I mean. I want my kids and grandkids to have a better life than mine – and I think that’s a tale as old as time, right there. Each generation wants the next to succeed, to be blessed, to live well. While Thomas Farmer might not understand me, I can’t help but believe he’d feel a sense of pride, knowing that I’m comfortable and happy.

I can only hope that ten generations from now, one of my descendants looks back at me and feels the same way.