Sifting through the branches

 After a tree is trimmed, the lopped-off branches lie scattered on the ground, fodder for the wood chipper. You won't find much in the mess left by real tree trimmings.

But the trimmings of a family tree are different. Some families transmit their histories fairly intact. Others distort their stories or refuse to share them altogether. 

Sometimes they wish to embellish their pasts, other times they desire to keep uncomfortable stories - to them - where they think they should stay, in the deep dark past.

Then some darn fool of a relative decides to poke around and finds all kinds of  information. 

I was thrilled to take a spin through our tree and find that, if you go back 400, 500, 600 years or so, you can find brag-worthy relatives. But you can also find some who may have been less seemly.

For instance, without going very far into my past, I found a family member who was born six months after his parents married, not the sort of thing people back then noised about.

Worse, one discovered document revealed a relative whose parents never married at all. The old saw about the order of love, marriage and baby making may not hold nowadays, but at the time it was more a societal rule than a saying. 

But pleasant surprises lie in wait as well.

I found Dad's diploma and a community-service commendation and looked his high school up on the Internet, not really expecting to find out much. Imagine my surprise to find that it still exists and its website contains a considerable history. 

The school started as a public school in the early 1900s in New York City.  By the time my Dad attended, students who wished to attend had to apply, and it was beginning to gain notice for its educational quality.

I was also surprised to find it was located in a different burrough from the one Dad lived in. I wish now I knew more. Dad was quite unassuming about his education and was such a plain sort of fellow you might guess he'd attended PS whatever instead of an invitation-only institution. 

The school eventually relocated to a new building and is considered one of New York's elite schools. The old building is still in use as a magnet school.