Finishing Up Demystifying Culture and Folklore

By Shannon Bennett, Student

Whoa, what a course. It made me think. It made me analyze my family connections. Most of all it showed me how great of a story my family narrative is! Amazing stuff, and I am so happy that I registered for it.

For those of you who are still not convinced, I am not sure there is much else I could say to sway you.  However, I will do my best. The rest of you who like stories and putting pieces of information together in new ways need to take this course.  Need reasons? Okay, here are a few.

Image courtesy of samuiblue/Freedigitalphotos.net

This course makes you think about your family in ways that traditional genealogy may not. While you may have thought, in a roundabout way, about what your ancestors lives may have been like, I bet you didn’t do it like we learned in this class.  Did you ever think about various influences that could affect their decisions? Or how about the cultural cues or biases they had and how that effected their American born children?

My upbringing certainly influenced the ways I raise my children just like the way my parents were raised influenced my childhood.  Going through the stories again and again, listening to different perspectives, and looking at the family through the documents it was easy to see how and why this happened. The immigrant ancestor was still present in many ways; they were still affecting in subtle ways how their descendants behaved decades later.

In this faster paced world where fewer people seem to have the time to sit and chat a while learning about the family mythology is also changing.  I learned about my family from listening to the stories my parents and grandparents told me. My kids, while learning the same stories from me, are also learning about their ancestors through the Internet and other resources.  Which is why I think taking a course on learning about the family myth is so very important. I can pass family stories on in person or via the web, reaching more cousins than I possibly could even 20 years ago.

Combining all these thoughts, lessons, perspectives, and stories together is a good thing in my opinion. It can only make our knowledge of our heritage sounder.  Think of all the amazing information you can discover when looking at something ordinary and mundane in a different light. I bet you will find something new!

Well off to the next course, see you online!