Mundane Turbulence

My friend Justin recently posted what I find to be a particularly touching entry to his blog. It’s a short one, and it features a photo and letter from his grandparents. The photo shows them as young parents, and the letter highlights just how much Justin looks like “Gramps,” which, although his grandfather’s face is mostly obscured, is undeniable — right down to the style of glasses.

And of course this reminded me of the paternal resemblance in my own family, which is equally as indisputable. There have been instances in which I was mistaken for my father by his old friends when walking around Cambridge, and some of these friends have called me “little Alex,” or even mistakenly called me by his name, in spite of the conscious understanding that we are, in fact, separate individuals.

But my face is no more my father’s than his face is his own. We owe this mug to — at least — his father, and likely his father’s father, and so on. Allow me to illustrate:

My grandfather, my father, and myself, in our early-to-late 20s.

My mother would argue that her genetics have vastly improved the Herwitz punum, but that of course does not change the clear line that its drawn from father to son within recent Herwitz history. I’ve always been aware of this fact of face, but only recently did that awareness manifest itself through a more concrete path: genealogy.

A little less than a year ago, I decided that I wanted to know more of the story…not just of what my forebearers looked like, but where they came from, what they did, and what they acted like. It started with the Herwitzes, who, unfortunately, I’ve only been able to track back to the first Herwitz in America, Kalman from Warsaw (although he was attempting to escape draft to the Prussian army, so a story goes, which means he could’ve lied about where he was from…or even his identity); but extended to the Roops (my mother’s family), and as many other lineages as I could tap into.

The semi-obsession that this pursuit created in me has yielded some very good products: I’ve made contact with family I had no idea existed; I’ve figured out the [simplified] answer to the question of my ethnicity (half Ashkenazi, one-fourth Pennsylvania Dutch, one-eighth Irish, one-eighth English); and I’ve been able to construct a pretty cool little tree:

You can click on this image to see a nice PDF of my tree in which you can zoom around.

There’s something about this acquired knowledge that I find very satisfying, in an existential kind of way. My physical appearance, which is a very real and tangible expression of my heritage, is thus reinforced with nonphysical information, complementing it with stories of time, place, and travel. These answers also bring with them new puzzles: what happened to the Polish Herwitzes (I doubt that it’s a happy tale), and the German Rupps? To which of my friends, if any, am I distantly related? What will my tree look like in two generations from now — or four, or eight? The contemplation of all of this, to me, is incredibly enjoyable.

The source from which this knowledge most resonates with me, however, does not reside in recorded data…instead, it lives within my thorax. I don’t know the story of my ancestry — after all, I am preceded by countless faces that I will never set eyes upon — rather, I feel it. It feels like homesickness, a joyous family gathering, a hug from my mother and father, watching my brothers or sisters have fun as though no one can see them, and viewing a really good episode of Nova from the comfort of my bed — all at the same time. The lives of every single person before me exist and perpetuate in me, and they will, in time, be joined by the lives of countless others in subsequent generations.

And it’s awesome!