I’ve always had an interest in genealogy. I haven’t done anything about it really. Never had the time I guess. Perhaps it’s because I’ve always been a fan of studying history. Finding ancestors somehow feels like a personal connection to the past, as if the DNA populating my cells has some sort of time travel awareness of what has gone before. Of course that’s crazy.
When I was diagnosed with Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome my interest in my roots, especially my Puerto Rican roots, intensified. Maybe it was the realness of mortality or the connection between my newfound fascination with genetics and how it connected me to my family history.
For years I’ve thought about whomever in my family tree might have had HPS. They would have lived so long ago that they wouldn’t have known what HPS was. It wasn’t really identified as such until 1959. My grandma Cockerill, whose father was from Puerto Rico, talked about relatives in Puerto Rico she heard about as a child that had died of tuberculosis. Could any of them have had HPS? Could doctors 100 plus years ago have thought pulmonary fibrosis was TB?
What about my non-Puerto Rican roots? Someone on my dad’s side of the family somewhere must have had HPS. Who was it? How long ago?
These HPSers in history...what was it like to live with HPS that long ago? What were they like and how did HPS impact their life stories?
As my involvement with the HPS Network became deeper and deeper and I was fortunate enough to go to Puerto Rico several times for HPS conferences, I would look at the crowd assembled and wonder who among the audience might be related to me. It would likely be a very distant relation, but the odds are that someone out there, someone else with HPS, is a distant cousin.
I hopped onto Ancestory.com the other night. Joining is not in my budget right now, but it lets you do a little bit (to entice you join I’m sure) and up popped a photo of my great grandpa from Puerto Rico. Someone, someone related to me most likely, must have uploaded it.
I then saw that you could upload not only documents and information about yourself (if you join) but you could upload an audio or video file. Wow! Now my imagination has been working overtime all week. I wonder how long those files stay up? Imagine someone researching their family tree 100 years from now and being able to not just find public records, and maybe some photos if they’re lucky, but an actual video or audio file of their ancestor actually speaking to them. Speaking, as in with words directly. Wow!
I’m not sure that this is the case. I haven’t really had a chance to look into it. But, if that were possible, what would you say?
I don’t have children. After I’m gone, the next generation of family will barely have known me. I’ll be this little tiny branch sticking out as a dead end on the family tree. No one will feel that kind of connection with me most likely. But, if I were able to speak to them – maybe that would make my little branch more interesting. Maybe it would make someone in the future feel some sort of connection with me.
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