My Grandfather’s birthday is 49 years and six days before mine. In my early memory, we celebrated our birthdays together. We shared a birth month, and I inherited his lazy eye, which left me with an eye patch and corrective lenses when I was three. He was paralyzed by polio as a young man, I was paralyzed by a spinal tumor as a young man.
The ways we are like our family can be comforting. Knowing that someone has done this before, and they came out generally okay, gives you an example of how to overcome the curveballs life throws. You get context for your struggles through shared experiences and stories.
The other story that we had in common was that I was born prematurely and that my grandfather was also born prematurely. The story is that he was born in a cab, not in a hospital or at home. It was 1925, so I’m unsure if the details are correct. That is also a comforting story, as a child, it binds you into the family narrative. We show up early and unexpectedly.
If You’ve Been Here Before
If you’ve read any of my posts about my search for the Thompson family, which is the root of this online diary, then you know that I eventually found myself with a bunch of evidence that I’m not genetically related to the Thompsons. The saddest part, for me, being that I had just recently found out they existed.
With that knowledge, I personally needed to find the break in the chain. I was at the point of needing to prove to myself that I was related to my dad. I discovered that I wasn’t the only one who had questions about that. That was some tense genetic testing. It turned out that my dad and I are related.
Being a blood relative isn’t a requirement of parenthood. However, it is important if you’re trying to use your genes to solve genealogical problems.
Next I needed to find out if my dad was related to his father, but his father was already dead. My grandfather’s death was a bit of a launchpad for this whole project. I tested a paternal cousin and validated that at a minimum my dad was related to his brother. Two of the brothers then shared a father and the most likely explanation was that it was my grandfather. I later had his maternal cousin tested, and we’re related to his mother’s family.
My grandfather had no siblings (that I know of), and, given his genetics, he was not related to his paternal cousins (although they were related to each other). My conclusion was that the break in the chain could be him or his father Ray Thompson (my great grandfather), who had no other children. There were no brothers or sisters of my grandfather to test.
I could not find that we were related to Ray Thompson’s mother or father, or the descendants of their families who had tested.
If you’ve been here before, then you know that I found our genetic target family (The Elmores) and did lots of testing to show that we were related, and did the math to figure out that my grandfather was not born prematurely like me. The best evidence I have is that the wrong guy is listed on his birth certificate.
The Thompsons
If you have followed all the twists and turns, then you know that my grandfather was raised by the Thompsons since he was a toddler, not by his mother. He hated his father, who, it turns out, wasn’t his biological father, and his aunts essentially raised him. By all accounts, he was loved and taken care of.
I inherited some of (what I believe to be) the Thompson family stories from my dad without knowing who they were. I learned that the Thompsons are partly native (which they are), that we’re somehow related to the Stuart kings in Scotland and England (probably not), and that my grandfather’s uncle “Fuzzy” Thompson had ties to the mafia (maybe). I got all this offhand lore from my dad, who probably got some of it from his dad. Right or wrong, these stories defined my idea of myself as a young person and into my adult years.
The Thompsons have told me that I have their sense of humor, that I “sound” like them, and that I have some of their personality traits. That is a comforting thought. They’re good people who have had many struggles and have come out the other side.
I believe them. I think they are right. I inherited some of this view of the world and my place in it, from them. They are my cultural roots, passed down through a couple of generations, unknowingly, to me and probably to my kids.
That is the best example of the cultural impact of family handed down over generations. The idea that somehow, I still know what it means to be their “kind” of Thompsons. We’re not just some random set of Thompsons, but bound to them. It is a testament to the strength of family ties. Some things are just more than genetics.
Inheritance
When I laugh, I sometimes hear my uncle Bob in my laugh. He’s my mother’s brother. I never spent much time with him, but I remember his laugh; sometimes that sound comes out of me. I think it is because the shape of my nasal cavity and my mouth leads to that type of sound. That quality of sound is probably genetic. I think it comes from my maternal grandfather Carl, although I’ve never met him.
Sometimes, when my eldest son speaks, I hear him say the same things, the same way, as my wife’s dad—well, I should say her stepdad. They’re not genetically related, but he is the dad she knows and the grandfather my kids know. I hear her stepdad and his brothers in my son. That is also a family inheritance.
Some things cannot be mapped to a genome.
100 Years
Based on his military records, Levi Thompson was partially paralyzed after being wounded in the last battle of the Civil War. On the way home, his leg got infected and became paralyzed. He also survived dysentery related to the infection.
I’ve had an infection that nearly killed me and caused dysentery. I only survived because of antibiotics, so I believe he’s one tough nut to live through that in the late 1800s. His condition was listed as “stiff leg”, which is a hilarious diagnosis. He carved tombstones, which, along with the horrors of war, may have given him a dark sense of humor. He disappeared before testifying in court as a witness.
The family he left behind is not my genetic family, but it helped create my family.
This year, we celebrate 100 years of being Thompsons.
