Genealogy, the researching of our family history, is gaining popularity. More and more people, beyond the stereotypical retirees, are attempting to verify their own ancestral roots. The number of reliable resources has grown exponentially, and the amount of material now on-line has exploded. But what is it about genealogical research that has created this increased interest? A look at how we see history can help uncover the reason.
Often, family searches begin with a quest for a ‘famous’ person or celebrity. Is our family really related to William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania and famous Quaker? What about King Henry VIII, the infamously married King of England? But invariably, the search morphs into this: What about the individuals that settled the places where we now live? What was it like to come across the thickly wooded land that is now called Kane County? Who did that, and why would they put themselves and their families at risk to make history?
The answer is, they didn’t think of it in terms of making history. And yet, as we seek to find the stories of our ancestors we’re uncovering the history they made. In doing so, we’re creating the foundation of our own history, the story our great-grandchildren will find as they seek their own family roots.
Consider the men and women who came to settle in what is now Kane County, Illinois. The majority of them were not recent immigrants to this country, but rather were the grandchildren or even great-grandchildren of a wide variety of immigrants. William Lance, one of the first to settle here, came to Blackberry Township in 1834 walking the distance from Pennsylvania with his two sons, John and Charles and his daughter, Mary. William Lance died in 1873; he was 102 years old and lived a life full of history. He is buried in a small cemetery along with his family on the site where their first cabin once stood.
There were two dozen or so pioneers who came west to this place in the mid- to late-1830s; some brought families and some came alone. But all of them had stories of their own ancestors and as residents of Kane County, don’t you want to know their stories? Their stories are the history of this place and by uncovering who they were, who their children were and how they lived, through genealogical research, we can bring that history to light.
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