ANECESTORS
I recently read a post on Facebook that I am sure some of you may have seen. In fact, I shared it on the Clan Irwin Association page. The post was titled, “Ancestral Mathematics”. I was not able to find the source or I would definitely give credit to the original poster. The post stated the following:
“In order to be born, you needed:
2 parents
4 grandparents
8 great-grandparents
16 second great-grandparents
32 third great- grandparents
64 fourth great-grandparents
128 fifth great-grandparents
256 sixth great-grandparents
512 seventh great-grandparents
1024 eighth great-grandparents
2048 ninth great-grandparents
For you to be born today from 12 previous generations, you needed a total of 4294 ancestors over the last 400 years!
Think for a moment – How many struggles, how many battles? How many difficulties? How much sadness? How much happiness? How many love stories? How many expressions of hope for the future? – did your ancestors have to undergo for you to exist in the present moment……”
Many of us that can trace our ancestry through an Irwin (or other spelling) have been removed from Scotland or Ireland for 400 or more years. So there are even more direct ancestors that have lived and died in order for you to be you.
We know that our grandparents or great-grandparents went through very hard times. Just in the last 150 years, no matter where you or your families settled, they went through 2 world wars, a world-wide flu pandemic, an American financial depression that impacted allied countries, the industrial age, etc.
Do you ever wonder about the lives of those people? It’s only been within the last few decades that the majority of babies can expect to grow to adults and mothers don’t expect to die in childbirth. How many mothers lost children and how lucky are you that your one particular ancestor made it to also become a parent? How many family members of your ancestors died of illnesses that we now consider inconveniences instead of a death sentence? What would your pioneer or impoverished ancestors think of the home you occupy and the security of your life compared to theirs? Do you think they would be amazed by the education you’ve received? What did they have to endure or struggle for that made it possible for you to succeed?
I often wonder about them as physical beings too. When my children and grandchildren were born, I would look into their sweet faces and wonder what they had inherited from me, my parents or my grandparents. I didn’t have the information on relatives further back but have often, through the years, been so blessed to see traits in my family that were shared from relatives that I do know and remember. My sister looks exactly like our paternal grandmother as a young woman. The cowlick on the nape of the neck that my Dad lamented is on my hairline and on several of my grands. The way my Mom lifted one eyebrow when skeptical is often reflected on my granddaughter’s face. My seven year old grandson looks amazingly like my maternal uncle’s pictures from that same age. The musical talent and green thumb that was inherited from both sides is strong in my children. What about the ones I didn’t know? I regret that many were unable to leave behind pictures to analyze for likenesses or information of their personalities, talents and quirks.
A funny note……my cousin and I went on a trip to Scotland in 2022 sponsored by Clan Irwin Association. While on the bus, she and I noted that some of the men in the group that were Irwins/Erwins had, what we, in our family, call “the Erwin nose”. Only one of those men came from the same ancestral line as us and its many, many generations removed. But to us, it just solidified the feeling of being connected.
As you trace your ancestry, think about those who came before you. Think about the journey of the people behind those names. How do you suppose they lived? Was their life/marriage/family happy? Did they have the opportunity for an education? What were they like? While some people may think that our ancestors were nothing like us, I disagree. Our culture and the world around us impacts us. But our ancestors loved, lived, worked and dreamed. How different from us could they have really been?
Leslie Smeathers,
Corresponding Secretary