Week 1 2026: An Ancestor I Admire
I admire so many ancestors. I think a lot of us who research our family history are amazed at the things our ancestors lived through -- immigration, wars, deaths of loved ones, etc -- and I know I have frequently been overwhelmed with the sequence of events that had to happen for me to be here and thankful for everything they went through for me to be, well, me.
All of us could tell so many stories but I'm going to start 2026 and what I hope to be a year long reinvestment in genealogy research with the two people closest to me: my mom and my dad.
I think what interested me in genealogy and family history in the first place was the fact that while I'm a natural born US citizen and I'm Caucasian, I was born in Japan. I don't have a birth certificate, I have a Proof of Birth Abroad form. My United States passport states my country of birth as Japan and this has been something that passport control officers have commented on throughout my life.
I was born in Japan because during the Vietnam war, shortly after getting married, my dad enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He was assigned a ship and stationed in Japan. My mom decided to go to Japan with him.
I... I think back at these two young kids, newly married, neither had been out of their home state of Michigan, and they up and went to Japan!
With my dad frequently away on the ship, my mom gave birth first to my brother in 1971 on a U.S. Navy base and then to me on a U.S. Navy base in 1973.
When my dad's tour was up they moved back to the U.S. (I was 18 months old) where they have lived since. But both my brother and I were raised in a way to respect so many different cultures which I am so appreciative of, and I have to believe that all goes back to my mom and dad transporting their young lives to the other side of the globe.
I love you, mom and dad, and I admire you both so much!
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