If You Don’t Ask, You’ll Never Even Know It Exists

Did I mention I had a Stiff book? No, it’s not about dead people. My husband’s last name is Stiff. His aunt sent the genealogy information after I started asking questions of his side of the family.

What’s shocking to me is that my husband (known as DH here) never even knew this material existed …

It was great to watch DH get absorbed in the Stiff story. Since you don’t know DH, let me explain that he’s not a big fan of books. In fact, he just recently discovered how much more tolerable Atlanta traffic is if you listen to books on tape while you commute. It’s not that he doesn’t like a good story he just doesn’t like to sit still to read. For him to pause to read about his family that’s important stuff; whereas I’ll read the back, front, and both sides of cereal boxes.

I have a theory on the lack of knowledge about The Stiff Book. DH’s parents divorced when he was ten or eleven years old and he lived with his mother until he moved out. He saw his father often, but not on a day-to-day basis. To make things more complicated, DH’s Grandpa Stiff was divorced from Grandma Stiff.

I think that communication gaps from the divorces are to blame here. But who’s blaming anyone? Not me! We’re just happy to have it and find out where such a funny name comes from (Gloucester, England, if you’re curious).

I never would’ve thought that DH would be interested in his ancestors. In fact, I wouldn’t have expected that of myself. But maybe it’s not so much about personality and preferences as it is about getting older, having children, and being able to look both forward to our children’s lives and backwards at our ancestors at the same time. I guess getting old does have some positive points! (If anyone knows any other ones, please let me know.)

It looks like PBS is again showing the first part of a documentary series called, African American Lives: Discovering Roots. It’s airing this coming weekend on March 19th. You can check your local PBS listing here.

This documentary looks into the lives of prominent African Americans (Oprah Winfrey is one, of course) and traces back their lineage. Later in the series, they talk about using DNA to trace the lives of these people back to Africa. Unfortunately, I missed that part of the series, but I hope you can catch all of it.

Note: If you think you’ll never remember to watch it, you can have PBS send a reminder e-mail to you.

~Mary Kaye