I didn’t know I was a Pilgrim’s granddaughter. The story I had been raised on was ‘you better depend on yourself, because you can’t depend on anyone else. you are alone…’

That was my mother’s story. The one she repeated a 1000 times in every way. Her father arrived from Ireland two weeks before the stock market crashed in 1929 with no job, no relatives and about $19 in his pockets. He was alone, yet somehow, some way he made it. He married an Irish immigrant’s daughter in Hell’s kitchen, moved to a small town in Vermont and they raised two children. The fact that he was certifiably insane is also true. These are stories I knew by heart and repeated to be true.

Well, it was true, but only in part. Those stories were only part of the whole. A few years ago I began looking for my Irish grandfather’s birth certificate because I wanted to get an Irish passport. If you have a direct relative of Irish immigration, obtaining an Irish passport is possible. Getting the paperwork in order is the tricky piece of that process. Thus I began to stumble through the past looking for proper documents, yet what I discovered was a whole lot more.

I hit roadblocks looking for my Irish ancestry. I realized the privilege of being able to explore the past in documents and papers from yesterday. I came to understand who’s stories were found and who’s stories were lost. I gleaned the power of records and why some societies were diligent record keepers (this maintained authority.) I also discovered how complicated, often violent events were blurred to become hopeful savior lore. And how my own family stories had become blurry with the past as well.

Yes, there is absolutely the Irish piece in my ancestral story. Just looking at my freckled face offers proof definitive, but there is more. As I encountered obstacles researching my Irish ancestry, I began poking around in my father’s relatives. I knew there were a lot of them. They lived in Vermont for a long time and drank too much…

What I found were people and stories; records; documents; writings; scandals; a history that I kept following back. And back. And back. To not only the Pilgrims, but up into Quebec too and across the sea to England, Switzerland, Amsterdam and France. Where records and documents are still kept as landowners; who is in charge; who are your people; what did they own; what did they do…are all essential pieces of maintaining an even larger story of the past.

These stories, people and places felt so familiar. I discovered echoes of myself in the stories of my ancestors. I found patterns. The realized I had already visited many of my ancestral home sites without even knowing I had roots.

Each of those places had held special resonance within me that I couldn’t quite name at the time, but now I see – it is inside me.

These stories are within me, beside me and guiding me.

According to the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, there are “35 million Mayflower/Plymouth Colony descendants in the world.” Some put that figure far lower to around 3 million descendants.

That is to say, these aren’t just my stories – this is us.

These are our stories, emotions and deeds that include the very best of us, the steady steps as well as leaps of chance, some pieces of the worst and sadly, the cruelty of a few. There are inspiring, tenacious survival journeys as well as revealing the costs of that survival. Who knows if I would have made different choices in their shoes. I like to think sometimes I would have, but I don’t know…

What I do know is I am empowered through the discovery these lives and stories. I’m curious. Even challenged. And most of all, Heartened, as I know there is so much more to be found.