Reply to Recently discovered some of my family came on the Mayflower; anyone else?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]AA here who is also a history professor.  I have no probelm with anyone being proud of their history and lineage. My ancestors were slaves (we were able to trace back 1837) but post-slavery my kinfolks did some pretty awesome things (including a legislator during Reconstruction).

I think some of the problem is that people claim the positive parts of their lineage ("My family was on the Mayflower, isn't that cool?") but, at the same time, disclaim any negative apsects of that same lineage ("You can't blame me for the bad stuff our ancestors did - it was not my fault.")  I am just saying that history is a positive and a negative story.  Both should be ackowledged and told. [/quote]

But that is strictly among the people you have talked to. I'm not a Mayflower descendant, but of the branch of the family that I can trace back so far, I know that we had at least three slaves. I know that one died in the same manner as my great great (etc) grandfather did, by a hatchet to the skull. I do actually feel pretty terrible that my family held slaves, and that we were actively involved in "settling" America, since everyone knows what that's code for. But at the same time that I feel remorse that my ancestors acted that way, I can't change what happened, and I can't do anything about it today, either. And I go back to what I said on page three: it's not that I have such great pride in the heritage, it's that it gives me a better sense of my family's stories. Honestly, since I only uncovered the early roots in the last year, I am more invested in and identified by my Norwegian American ancestors arriving in the 1870s and 1880s. Their stories are completely lost beyond the barest sketches.[/quote]

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