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 disc