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Ancestry

 

Even before RBG passed away, I had great worries about Trump stealing yet another election. So, once again, I began researching emigration possibilities. Of course the ludicrousness of doing something like this during a pandemic, when no country I want to live in will let me enter due to the botch up of how our country has handled the virus, somehow did not deter me. Perhaps I needed a distraction to give me some hope for the future.

I remembered an American who was arrested for potentially being a spy a few years ago and had multiple legal passports because of family ancestry, which made me wonder if through some miracle I could gain one. I recalled my mother mentioning a Danish connection when I was a teenager, but, being the typical teenager, I had not asked many questions or made copies of the pages she’d received from her adopted mother.

With my parents both dead, and me estranged from my family, I wondered if I’d ever be able to find anything out. Still, I had the time, and had always been good at research, so logged in to the local public library website and navigated their ancestry area. Very quickly I found scans of handwritten Selective Service cards my father and both grandfathers had filled out, then came census forms. In not very much time I found the Danes, but sadly they were my great great-grandparents on my mother’s side, clearly too far back to try to gain any type of official status in Denmark.

It was interesting seeing that I’d actually visited the city my great great-grandfather was born in when I’d been in Denmark many years ago. A very distant cousin had created a website with lengthy information and photos of the family, detailing that he’d converted from Lutheran to Mormon, which is ultimately what brought him to America in the early 19th century. I was disappointed that much was written about him and his son, but not about the women. They gave birth to insane amounts of children, but little was said about them. My fear is that we may be about to enter another time of invisible women if the Republicans have their way.

I did a bit more research on the other strands of family, but gave up when I saw that the great grandparents were all born in America. It may seem ironic in this new time of a rising white supremacy, when Trump throws out these silly notions about mandating pro-American classes at schools, that I’m longing for what so many recent immigrants have – a connection to another country that I can escape to before this one implodes.

Right now, as I anxiously hope for a miracle to stop the Republicans' power-grab of the Supreme Court, which would make the court completely out of step with the majority of the American people. We already have a President who wasn’t elected by the American people, as more voted for Hillary, and thanks to gerrymandered districts, the same can be said for most local, state, and federal politicians. Imagine if certain callers to American Idol were given 100 votes while most people only got one vote and you would see outrage, yet we accept this unbelievably unfair and antiquated system of election for what’s so much more important. There are even more reasons to vote this year than there were just a few months ago. I can only hope that Biden musters the strength to tackle major reforms. Otherwise, I’ll be wishing I could either go back in time to plant myself in another country before all this happened, or whisper to my great great-grandfather to stay in Denmark, where it’s safe.

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