HISTORY'S FABLE

HISTORY A FABLE AGREED UPON... PHYCOLOGICAL EFFECT GENEALOGY HAS ON HUMANS, FAMILY ALIVE VS FAMILY DECEASED. Are you family of Emily HOBHOUSE or Daisy DE MELKER? Or even KROTOA? Why does it matter or not matter? I had this dream of doing a PowerPoint Presentation one day to show the family all the stuff I found in my research, well … in short… it never happened. This was really something I wanted, I wanted to tell my stories and share what I found. After the first negative family feedback before my unrealistic presentation I collected my thoughts and today I want to share that story, I am sure some people can relate. I always think of old series like years back “Murder She Wrote” or these days “ CSI”, I know the sensation when you watch these … and I realised research gives me a sense of that feeling when you just know who the guilty one is, and when its revealed excitement and an extra dash of adrenaline surge. This is how I feel about my historical records, pedigree findings and other demonstrations of kinship. Many families had secrets covered up with lies. Our fore bores worked extremely hard to keep some secrets secret, isn’t it? Yes, we all have them. My questions today is … why do family not want to acknowledge these ancient secrets, why do you as family of Genealogists (amateur / professional) receive such news as negative and other family scandals or secrets go as not well-received ? Amateur Genealogists and family members sometimes think ancestry will show them heroes, but it shows us felons and bigamist too. Scandal!?! I turned out to be even bubbly and chirpy when I find some juicy stuff, then with times I find myself being the only one excited! I love to tell people I have Daisy or KROATIA in my tree, irrelevant if it is a bloodline or not. Is there something wrong with me or is it in my DNA? Good question for this topic. Am I one of the secrets somebody someday wants to hide? For example, I did a lineage on a SAAIMAN branch, and found a link to Pieternella (KROATIA’S daughter), I was out of my skin of excitement, imitating baboon behavior even and the family was not happy with my findings, but yet again found … being the only person exhilarated for these findings. Why I did not understand. I felt deprived. I had to find out! STUDY :18/19 I started my own little reading and researching some psychological effect Genealogy have on humans. Many questions were flared to my direct and not direct colleagues. I know people differ and we get different aspects of human nature, but I wanted to understand better. Then I wondered … why? What is wrong or are people simply just thinking differently from me??? Lents NATHAN (H., 2018) explains that in all new worlds we had the same basic phenomenon in history when slaves changes hands (and continents), and this was not uncommon. For example: Jan VAN RIEBEECK only came with a few women on the first ships, his wife, Maria, 2 nieces and the doctor’s pregnant wife and the gardener’s wife. If you are direct from the house of Jan VAN RIEBEECK, Willem. B. WYLANT or the gardener then only then are your chances of the 5% to be not of our true rainbow nation, but the first people on these ships were 95 males and most of them, once on Africa soil, took a wife, some slaves as wife’s too. Some had both … they wanted the half-way house at the Cape but also to procreate, these are documented facts and not by speculation. Very few people know this. (H.F., 2020) If your lineage come from the 1652-1795, basically the first 50 years as they are called, the changes are you are part of the real rainbow nation. Me, you, and the neighbor. Yes, and the racist out there. Descending from then, 95% “stam-moeders” (progenitors) were slave women either black or Indian / Portuguese slaves and later coloured. (H.F., 2020) this information was deliberately taken from our history and kept from us by previous leaders. Some leaders worked extremely hard to keep this out of our history books. I find it refreshing but most people do not even think it is true. Articles like these explained well. https://www.brandsouthafrica.com/.../whats-in-a-south... Summarizing the study All the colleagues I peppered with questions gave quite a few answers, but the conclusion is simple indeed. The mind is a complex organ but now I understand better. Experts say this is soul-searching in some way. Emotion vs facts. Judith FEIN explains that Genealogy can be a bittersweet roots journey to ancestral lands. It is mixed emotions and we must be ready for this journey and family is not all playing the game. It is funny (JUDITH, n.d.), sad, powerful, and complex. But the professionals had this to say: • Emotions cloud our judgment and that affects our choices. • We cannot choose an emotion, but humans choose what to do with them. • Firstly, one must remember that with this sometimes-scandalous information the reaction can range from bemusement to identity confusion. • They are caught off-guard. • We must learn, very few humans do not think with a logical mind. Some people never develop a logic mind. • People think with emotion first. Logic might kick in at a later stage. Acceptance??? Rational??? • Many humans hate the truth, they have their own picture in their mind and their own reality, even has built up memory around this (phycological effects) … some may call this retrospective falsification even paramnesia. • The picture some people have were not always their own but given from generation to generation and got “lost in translation”. Only 5% of family stories seems to be proven. In a few years we will study this with a larger background, because some cultures believe we are ‘quilty of the sins of our father’. • Acceptance can be difficult, experts say, particularly when it is close to home or grisly even. • Anxiety makes humans react in an aggressive way. The minute you hear some story against all you know, aggression is one of the first reactions. • Mostly the unknown or the implications to ones live or “what will people say” makes them anxious and nervous. • Any new information, especially hidden for years may take some time to generate into new thought or behaviour and / or even acceptance. Last words OPEN-MINDEDNESS IS A SKILL, IN SOME WAYS. I think. But accepting skeletons can be a choice and flexible. I do have empathy for this no logic minded humans, but I will never fully comprehend the reasons why people behave this way or refuse the truth. Uncovering secrets can help explaining some pattern behaviour, one expert says. For example, alcoholism, divorce, abuse, and other misbehaviour, let us blame it on the ancestors then, was my reaction. Every specie owes our existence to our roots; a tree cannot ignore its roots. Every branch and leaf are alive because of its roots. Nobody should feel guilty for enjoying Genealogy. It is natural and alluring. “we all feel stronger as part of tapestry” says Stefan WALTERS. (therapist) one treat alone is weak, but woven into something larger, we are stronger. For me it is sad that history can be falsified in general and masses is just O.K. with it. But I know now sometimes … “history is also just a fable agreed upon” Naomi KEYTER