Three Reasons Family Stories Get Lost

Why is information about our ancestors lost to future generations?  Here's 3 reasons that had an impact on my own family.

Family member name: Nelson F. Smith

Lifetime: 1859-1910
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 2x great-grandfather (my dad's mom's dad's dad's)

The lost story
My 2x great-grandfather, Nelson F. Smith grew up in a lighthouse.  Yes! A super cool, famous lighthouse called Chatham Light on Cape Cod.  My family was completely unaware of this until I found it through my family tree research.  But this was relatively recent family history, so how does information like this get lost?  Imagine the stories of storms and rescues and close calls!

Just to be clear, Nelson F. Smith was my grandmother's grandfather.  My grandmother just passed away a few years ago at the age of 98.  She never told us that her family had any connection to Chatham Light, even when we visited Chatham with her.  I don't think she knew.  How could she not have known?  Isn't fun family information passed down to the next generation?

1. Early death
Of course, early death is a major reason why stories don't get passed on to future generations.  Nelson Smith died in Boston at the age of 51 from complications of an infection in his heart.  He died five years before my grandma was born.

So grandma did not receive firsthand information from her grandfather.  However, why didn't her father, Charles Nelson Smith, tell her that HIS own father grew up in a lighthouse?  He may not have known either.  Why not?

2.  Separation
My great-great-grandmother Fannie Naomi was a single mom.  (She is the little girl in the tintype in my last blog post.) She and Nelson divorced at some point, which was very taboo at the time. She moved in with her brother, Francis Gibbs, in Fairhaven, Mass.  So my great-grandfather was not raised by his own father. Uncle Frank was the father figure in his life.  

The marriage of Fannie Naomi Gibbs and Nelson Smith did not get off to the best start.  They were married on Tuesday, March 22, 1887, and 4 months later (yikes! the #1 taboo at the time), little Charles was born on July 25, which is 133 years ago today. 

So, because of the unplanned pregnancy, the rushed wedding and subsequent divorce, Charles may not have had a substantial relationship with his own father, Nelson, and therefore never heard about his childhood in the lighthouse firsthand.

Charles Nelson Smith, my great-grandfather, sporting the world's best bow tie, may not have had a relationship with his father, who grew up in a lighthouse.

3. Hurt feelings
Was there bad blood?  Who divorced who?  Was Charles' father, Nelson, even mentioned at all in conversations?  Did he ever visit him?  Even if Charles knew about his father's childhood in the lighthouse, was there so much hurt that he didn't speak of him to his wife and daughter later in life?  We don't even have a picture of Nelson.

We don't know the circumstances of their relationship, marriage or divorce.  But since such a key piece of information in family history went missing so quickly, it must have been a combination of death, separation and hurt feelings that they just couldn't bear to repeat the stories of the lighthouse.