Tag: family

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Ancestors Calling: Science, Synchronicity and Sources

Image created with ChatGPT 4.0 by author

Back in the 1980s, there were two books that dramatically influenced me and shaped some of what I believe about my relationship to my Ancestors and my family tree research. In those days, there weren’t computers, technology of linking to cousins or DNA research to help us with proving our connections to each other and ancestors. But books were a huge part of my early learning in the genealogy field as I didn’t know about societies, national organizations (the National Genealogical Society, New England Historical and Genealogical Society, and others existed), or other helps other than what librarians in my locale could teach me. I found some “beginner” books and talked to many in my family, especially my beloved Aunt Catherine, my mom’s older sister.

But what changed it all were two books that I discovered and bought!

Henry Z. “Hank” Jones, Jr. wrote these two books back in the 1980s.

As I had, for years, studied various spiritual and philosophical topics, learning about how we as people learn, grow and develop personalities. Yes, I’d also been in therapy, which opened some doors too. Having completed college (B.S. in medical technology in 1975 from Michigan State University), I was exposed to psychics, quantum mechanics (a bit … not deeply), and initial college courses in psychology.

Hank’s books opened a very big world to me, as I had experienced some very weird feelings and events that had me wondering what was going on. As I’ve always been a very spiritually-oriented person from childhood, I was comfortable with the sense that my beloved grandmother, Mary Elsie Cecelia (Elliott) Sutinen, was in contact with me after her death (why and how is perhaps a story for later). So Hank’s books “landed”! There were people, nationally-known genealogists (I didn’t know them then but some of them I know now) and some “regular” people like me, who had shared with Hank about the occurrences that made them wonder about the hints, odd findings in books, chance encounters with parking in cemeteries right AT their ancestor’s grave and more that propelled their research forward.

So the scientist in me began questioning what was going on! I was young, didn’t have the worldwide access to resources that we do now, but I used libraries, conversations with very smart people, and a LOT of reading. And life was moving me around – my husband Denny was in the US Air Force so we moved about every 4 years. As the years passed, the experiences and encounters came more frequently, in varied forms and about different ancestors. As our Air Force travel gave me opportunities to visit more distant cemeteries, farms and libraries, I found that I would feel odd body sensations when I was near an ancestral connection – maybe just feet away from a relative’s grave, or finding a homestead while using a map in Quebec without really knowing where we were going (I found the Belanger original homestead on the St. Lawrence through a combination of paper maps, French conversation with locals, and the odd body feelings that gave me the courage to knock on a stranger’s door – confirming that I was in the right place!).

Skip forward some decades and the wonderful advent of the computer, technology advances that gave us the internet, Google and researchers around the world. AND finding people who could explain aspects of quantum mechanics, basic physics concepts (I had been a good physics student in high school, but college gave me more), and my spiritual beliefs were deeper and broader. Without all of the detail, a magazine directed me to the concept of “luck” and the cognitive science behind it. A local university professor, met at a networking event, told me about a book about synchronicity, and various spiritual discussions and readings guided me to ancestral connections and understandings.

And it all started falling into place more significantly as I fully emersed myself in readings, study, and openly discussing what I was learning. That took me to others who would quietly confirm that they too were sensing something very unique, fascinating and warm that led them, through intuition, “chance” occurrences or meetings. Books fell off shelves, microfilm machines stopped at just the RIGHT page, and encounters with librarians stacking books offered random (were they random?) conversation leading to more!

Yes, this sounds weird, right? Didn’t matter to me as it had felt real for so long that I was beyond the idea of hiding it and I was emboldened to talk to anyone who would listen. And I emailed Hank, to ask him for a conversation by phone. He answered in twenty minutes! In that first conversation (and there have been more), he confirmed all that I was saying and encouraged me to dig into the science. I proposed to him that I wanted to create a presentation for the genealogy community about what I was discovering and he agreed to attend the first presentation.

The Allen County Public Library was kind enough to allow me to offer the first presentation that, while not as refined as now, got my point across!

Image generated using ChatGPT by author.

The feedback from that event propelled me forward, with people sharing emails and information with me afterwards! More resources, more books to read, more people to talk to and knowledgeable people to help me with the concepts.

I’ve offered the presentation, modified each time as I learn, for perhaps twelve times now to various groups. With each sharing, people have opened up about their personal experiences either during the presentation or privately afterwards. Some people came forward to share about a professor or university publication that could help me refine some of my concepts. Connections had grown and grown! The handout for the presentations is already six pages and could easily be over ten with all of the sources I’ve found. People knowledgeable about physics and especially quantum mechanics have helped me to keep that information simple for general audiences, and I’m even getting “random” Facebook page information to deeper concepts (odd, isn’t it that even my Facebook feed somehow knows what I want to see?! ). That’s the exciting and energizing part of this work – a feeling of confirmation, encouragement and new information that is now seemingly on a free flow for whenever I’m ready for the next piece.

What’s been your experience with what I’m sharing? Have you driven into a cemetery, not knowing where to go, and finding that you’ve stopped the car within feet of the tombstone you were seeking? Have you been at a library and a chance comment, conversation or shelf scan resulted in a key piece of information that you needed? Please share in the comments or reach out to me via judynmuhn@gmail.com – I’d love to hear more! And if you are knowledgeable in psychology, cognitive theory, quantum mechanics, synchronicity or spiritual concepts, please DO let me know – having a conversation would be awesome!

Get out there and listen, look, feel for input from “odd” sources or feelings – go with it and then tell me what happened, ok? Our Ancestors want us to find them and know about their lives. I KNOW it, I don’t just believe it. You?

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The Sandhills Are Alive With Music!

“The hills are alive with the sound” of Sandhill cranes!!  It’s obviously fall … and I did the best that I could on the pictures as I had to grab my cell phone FAST to rush outside.  Wow … the sound was deafening and there were HUNDREDS of Sandhill cranes, all squawking at once, getting into formation.  There were multiple “V” patterns, and birds flying to catch up.  As I stood on the porch snapping what I could, I could hear more coming and more in a farm field nearby …. VERY loud but eerie, surreal, primordial …. special.

When I hear, see such wonderful creatures, I think about the migratory journey they have ahead as they eat up what corn, grains they can from the surrounding farm fields.  I’ve always loved these beautiful and large birds and wanted to study them when we realized that they were so numerous here in our new home.

Wondering what to write about today, as I wanted to keep Lineage Journeys readers up on more than just the upcoming conferences and events that I’m doing, the sandhills provided a great way to break from writing, researching and keeping up with the business end of the work.  I wanted therefore to share a great book I found that has tremendously beautiful photographs AND tells the story of the struggles that sandhill cranes have with habitat encroachment, pesticides, and more.  On Ancient Wings:  The Sandhill Cranes of North America by Michael Forsberg is the book that gave me a perspective that increased my joy of them all the more, as I’d like to see what I can do locally to help them.   The book is linked here and in the title above as I found the book on Amazon (there are other great field guide-type of books too!)  if you might be interested in learning.

The reason that I am thinking about this, writing about this?  Maybe because I’m a genealogist or because I’m such a nature-lover, these birds are a fascination to me.  As a genealogist, I wonder whether my ancestors had the opportunity to witness such a spectacle, if their farms had these graceful birds feeding there before setting off for the south.  My Québec ancestors were farmers almost entirely (some were woodworkers) so I think about what I just saw and how ancient these birds are (I think I read somewhere they they are millions of years old, from fossil evidence!), wondering if they were part of the lives of my people in Québec.  With the St. Lawrence and other waterways in the region that my families’ farms were located (most recently, my ancestors are from Maskinongé, Québec and around both Québec City, Montréal and back into Acadia), it is certainly likely.  What did they think?  Did they stop from their farming just as I stopped from my work to look UP?

As I think about and work to write the stories of my ancestors, I want to include content about their day-to-day lives like the sounds of the sandhill cranes or the weather patterns (like the very severe rains that we’ve been having this year!) that impacted their survival.  It’s not about the dates for me – births, marriages, deaths – but it’s about what they DID, who they were friends with, the music and foods that were important, and the struggles and joys they experienced.

I hope they experienced the sound I heard this morning – the sandhills’ music of life.

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Watershed Moments

A “watershed moment” is a point in time in which you feel that something changed, that you changed, that life changed.

I had a moment/day like that recently. Actually it is more of a series of things that have happened. As a genealogist, there are moments in time that I recognize that I’m noting a date and it was a big deal for my ancestors. Someone died, someone was born, two people were married. There are so many of those moments as a genealogist that I honestly can say that they are dates in a computer sometimes to me … until my own “moment”.

You see … someone died. Actually there have been a series of deaths in the recent past (since my brother died in July 2013 actually) and this most recent death of a beloved “sister” has caused a shift. I put “sister” in quotation marks because, while she wasn’t a genetic sister, she was a sister of my heart … a teacher, friend, beloved leader and spiritual Elder. To me and many. And it was at her funeral and the four days of the wake and then burial ceremony, that I’ve been thinking about A LOT! Without going into all of that here, it DID make me think, as a genealogist of those “watershed moments” of my ancestors.

Perhaps it was in the mid-1860s when my Villeneuve (Amiot dit Villeneuve) ancestral family came from Maskinonge, Quebec to Marquette, Michigan area. My Elliot ancestors came from the same area to Ishpeming, Michigan in the 1880s. Then they all eventually ended up in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, in Houghton County – around Hancock and Boston Station and the mining communities. They met up there supposedly because they attended the same church. A Villeneuve girl married an Elliot boy, and an Elliot girl married a Villeneuve boy. In June, 1889 when Edward Elliot married Marie Louise Villeneuve in Ishpeming, was that a “watershed moment” for them? Did they recognize the importance of that day and the history that they would create together (they ended up having 18 kids!!!) that resulted in my grandmother? Did the day that great-grandfather Edward died in 1919, crushed by a shifting pile of coal that he was assigned to move, created that incredible “watershed moment” for great-grandmother Louise? She had a pile of children and now no husband. In the 1920 Census, she has eight children living with her. The two oldest sons are working so the family at least had an income but many of the children were very young. My grandmother, Mary Elsie Elliot had married Warner “Waino” Sutinen and was living nearby. Grandpa Warner was also a miner – I wonder if he was present when Edward was crushed … who told Great-Grandma Louise that he was severely injured (he later died of his injuries according to the newspaper account and his death certificate). Certainly, that would have been a “watershed moment” for both families.

Maybe it’s a function of the death of others that gives us “watershed moments” … it has been for me, early in this new year. Does everyone have moments like this?