Genealogy and Privilege
Genealogy is easy when, like me, you are white and had ancestors who owned land. I grew up Catholic in Germany, to a Belgian father and an American mother. Until high school, the history I learned was mostly focused on Europe, but I did get glimpses of our family history in the US. I especially heard of our Irish ancestors who settled in Southeast Colorado in the late 19th century.
So when I learned the term WASP—White Anglo-Saxon Protestant—I never thought it applied to me. It's only now when I wrestle more deeply with my family history that I see how the term does apply.
This is a difficult page to write. Not because I don't acknowledge my own privilege and not because I don't want to hide the dark parts of my family history. There are just so many points I want to touch on and I don't know how to organize them.
My father grew up in Belgium to a single mother. His father had died at 36 in a coal mining accident during World War II. "See?" I always wanted to say, "there was hardship." My Belgian grandmother survived both World Wars in Belgium, a country that suffered greatly during those wars. And yet she owned her house and owned land. My father went to college. We grew up solidly middle class.
Plus playing the Belgium card inevitably invites investigation of Belgium's history in the Congo. History that I haven't found any direct family links to, but that certainly weighs heavy.
Back on the American side, there was always much talk of our Irish ancestors, but the lines that can be traced back the farthest are the WASPs. Those families that ended up in Colorado seem to have taken two routes. Ancestors that arrived in colonial New England and then made their way West mostly through Indiana, Illinois and Iowa; and ancestors that arrived in colonial Virginia and made their way West via a more Southern route that included Kentucky and Missouri.
Some along the Southern route may have owned slaves. All of them were part of a White invasion of previously settled lands.
In their own telling, they may have led noble lives. Perhaps they tamed wild lands or spread the Christian gospel. I'm sure there was hardship. I'm sure there were sins against their fellow humans.
I know tracing my family back as far as I can is a privilege. It means records were kept. It means children were not stolen from their parents. It means people weren't kidnapped from their native land and brought to foreign soil.
Should I give up my genealogy hobby because of all that? It certainly doesn't change the past.
Instead, I think I must be brutally honest with myself and with the world about what my family history means.
Feedback? Please contact me.