who do you think you are?

[wickedcherub]

Went round to my In Laws last night for dinner because I can't stand the smell of any food at the moment, so no cooking for me. Thank god for Adam's entire family being within a 5 minute drive from our house. I have such respect for those people who go through pregnancy and motherhood alone.

Speaking of Adam's entire family, I saw a book lying on the buffet there and it was the entire Dearing family tree from 1820-1989. Photos, descriptions, everything. I was quite overwhelmed. I looked through it and none of the hundreds and hundreds of people in this book were 'special' in any way, they were/are all farmers and labourers (though there was one school principal!) and yet here they were, special and remembered because they are a part of our family. I had fun finding all the different euphemisms for 'housewife'. Apparently my mother in law is a 'domestic engineer' no joke :D
Some of the descriptions got a bit 'dating service' like 'Irene is doing a degree in Bible Study (or whatever). She has an infectious exuberance, a never-say-die attitude and loves kittens'.

All these branches of the family tree in England, Canada, America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It was astonishing. Even more so because it was pre-Internet!

It made me feel like I had a hole in my abdomen though. Adam already has his 110 immediate family members living within a 20km radius of our house. I have one uncle and one aunt. The rest are in Vietnam. I had a great number of family friends at our wedding (probably 110!), people whom I've known my entire life, but they have their own families, they're not *my* family.

And now Adam had a connection to all these hundreds of people, he has connections and roots and history and I'm just... floating. I feel like I have appeared out of thin air.

I also can't start hunting down family history either. There are no records or photos past my grandmother. My surname is something like the third most common one. I think my maternal grandfather's surname is just the colloquial term for 'Chinese' because they immigrated from China.

I do know that I have two great grandfathers who had four wives each. Apparently I'm descended from the 'big wife' from both sides :p Maybe my Dad will know. I'll ask him when he gets back from his holiday and I'll write down everything he knows about our family. He's good like that.

I also get this desperate feeling when it comes to Liam. Because of the size and proximity to Adam's family (and also the sheer 'whiteness' of where we live) it feels like Adam's traditions and rituals (like Christmas and Easter etc) are bigger and more important than the ones I grew up with. I want him to relate to being Vietnamese. I want him to look forward to Lunar New Year with the same fervor as Christmas.

I want him to know where I come from but sometimes it's difficult because I don't even know. Luckily for me Adam loves going to visit my family in Vietnam and it's not expensive, so we'll probably have many family trips there. That's always a good start.

Comments

[marije.livejournal.com]

I can relate, I moved from Europe 12 years ago and the very few family members I have in Australia are in Adelaide. My mum and sister being the only ones I have shared history with. I also feel that "floating" feeling a lot. It's lonely!

I have a vietnamese friend who has a little boy called Liam as well :) she lives near dandenong, and I often catch up with her. She moved to Australia for her husband and has no relatives here. Shes very big on teaching her Liam te Vietnamese culture and speaks it to him as well. We celebrated Chinese nye

[marije.livejournal.com]

Together which was really fun. Sorry my comment got posted too early, lj mobile is pretty crap :)

Maybe, if you feel comfortable, we could all get together sometime, or with another Vietnamese event... It's always so nice to know more mums and for the babies to get together too :)

[missdewey.livejournal.com]

You should really consider asking around some genaology forums. I didn't know anything further back than my great-grandfather's name, and now thanks to a few increasingly specific Google searches and emails to people found therein, I can trace my dad's family back to the 1600s, with an additional suggestion about names only going back to the 1200s. Other people had already done all the research, I just had to find it. There was even a book I found on Google Books and was able to buy a copy of from ebay.

So who knows? Maybe you have some super-organized great-great-eight-times-removed-aunt or something who digs this stuff and knows all of it. You just have to find them.

And if you don't, you can always start your own book with what little you know, and give it to Liam to carry on someday.

[wickedcherub.livejournal.com]

That's so cool. I'm kind of pretty positive my family is the first of any side of our family to get out of Vietnam, so all the info is Vietnamese, and therefore, kind of non existent :(

But I think my dad has it all in his head, somehow, so I might ask him.

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you. I doubt many records of my family were kept post-Cultural Revolution, and my parents don't know very much about it because their parents didn't tell them very much.

Personally I've always found genealogy to be a pretty white-centric activity (though that's fine). I think history is interesting, but I find it kind of strange to trace genetic makeup, especially since my parents basically did "start again" after immigrating. For me, the family that you make is more important than bloodlines.

Also trips to Vietnam is a good idea IMO. I've travelled to Shanghai consistently over my lifetime and while I don't feel "at home" there or that I belong, there's definitely a connection to the place.