On Being American

Corbett | April 8, 2005 1:35 PM

When people ask me where I'm from, I say the US. Even though I was born in Japan, and am half Japanese. There is hardly any Japaneseness in me.

The US is such a hodge podge of races. We're all mutts, and even though you hold a US passport it's hard to really say you are really American unless you are maybe full blooded Cherokee or something. Living in Taiwan, I think it's interesting how Chinese are so obsessed with family, and fascinated with heritage and blood lines, since most people can only go back three generations. It's sad too, because records were always destroyed, so a "Wu" or a "Chang" really can't have an idea of where they came from except some general speculation.

I started digging into my family history a few years back. This was sparked by the long discussions I would have with my grandfather when I was a kid about when he was a kid. I always enjoyed that a lot. I managed to sit down with him and archive about a thousand photos before he died. Writing down who was in the photos and where they were. I learned a lot about the way life was in the early 1900's.

In 2001 I put up some BBS posts on ancestory sites, and forgot all about it until last week, and went back and saw that there were a couple replies from 2001. I followed up with a quick email to a distant relative who had done an incredible amount of research, and she was able to unravel the mystery of some of the things I had forgotten over the past 30+ years, or remembered incorrectly from my childhood conversations with my grandfather. This helpful relative and I share the same great great grandfather. Her great grandmother was a sister to my great grandfather whom I knew little about since he died when my grandfather was young, and grandpa didn't have too much information on him other than to say he was from a well respected family and had a rich and important father. He showed me the photo of his own grandfather which I remembered to this day which helped verify that the above woman and I were related.

(This flag was raised over the Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina on March 15, 1781 by Captain Alexander Brevard's company, whose militiamen included my ancestor Jonathan Wall. They halted the British advance through the Carolinas and turned them back to the seaport towns. This was one of the bloodiest battles of the long war with the British losing over a quarter of their troops)

Anyway, I think it's just amazing that someone actually dug up and made these pdf images of Revolutionary War documents on my great great great great grandfather, Jonathan Wall, a descendent of Robert Wall, who was a first or second generation American descended from one of these early settlers of the Province of Maryland who landed directly from England: Andrew Wall, 1661; John Wall, 1663; Lawrence Wall, 1668; Richard Wall, 1670; Joane Wall, 1673; Thomas Wall and wife, Alice, 1675; John and Alice Wall, 1677.

Yes, apparently I am as American as they get. At least half of me.

Category: Ramble

Comments (1)

Comments

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cyn

April 17, 2005 5:23 AM

i think that is fascinating.
i wish i could trace my heritage
better, but my family is from taiwan
and china. i think my being here
in america and the language barrier
would make things difficult. =( i
wish i could read mandarin.

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