Body Language
It is often said that if you want to know how another person really feels, you should pay more attention to their body language than their words. We can craft our sentences and vocal variety to reveal the message that we want to get across, while our bodies are telling a story that we'd like to keep hidden. At the same time, body language is specific to different people. An angry person folding their arms is not the same as a perpetually cold person who subconsciously holds their arms to their body while keeping a straight face. It's easy to make mistakes interpreting body language. Have you ever thought someone was really into you (or they thought you were into them) because of a seemingly flirtatious grin, only to find out that unlike most people you know, they just have a genuinely welcoming smile that feels attractive?
Body language may in fact tell us more than the spoken word, but interpreting that language can still prove impossible at times. There is a different type of body language that I'm trying to decipher. If you want to go beneath the surface to get the truth, then you've got to go beneath the surface. The DNA in our bodies is the code to who we are and where we come from. While spoken language can tell us what others want us to believe, the body will tell us who we are.
There are problems I am running into in the search to uncover my family connections when it comes to verbal information. The first is that names are changing based off of literacy, pronunciation and marriages. I have always known my great grandmother as Sylvia Robinson. I always remembered her fondly even though I was only 2 years old when she died. I would ask to go see her all the time and I remember her front door, her house which was near my favorite store called Giant Tiger, and her two long silver "Native American" pigtail braids that framed her face.
Trying to find records for Sylvia Robinson proved impossible. I was able to find her death record, but nothing about her birth or family. It was only through the name of her cousin who's mother's name I traced, who's name had also changed multiple times, who was connected in a census to my great-grandmother, that I found out who she was. Sylvia, in the census, was Sylvester Miscoe. In another census, she is Sysvestra Misco and in another Sylvestra Miscoe. Notice the changes in the spelling of her first and last names. My great grandfather was Frank Scott, but there is no record of them living together, being married (no Sylvia Scott), or having any children together. No record of my grandmother's birth either, thought both her parents names (Scott and Misco) adorn her marriage record. Sylvia died a Robinson, and I had no clue how she ever became a Robinson.
The second problem I am running into is the perception of people in the years I am searching for vs. the perception we have of them now. My "Native American" great grandmother was listed on one census as Black. Another census used the words MULATTO to describe both my great grandmother and her mother. Native American turned out to be code for Afro-European, as my DNA test confirmed the census information. As for her mother, Charlotte (aka Sharlatt aka Sharlat aka Charlatt aka Charlatte), I can't get to her birth information to discover what her maiden name was or who her parents were. It's so far back I'm imagining that there is little chance a white person would have been willing or able to lay claims to having made a baby with a black person. Sylvia was born in 1902, Charlotte was born in 1872. In Mississippi. So... there's not a high chance I'm going to find out who her parents were.
The third problem is that we use our words to say that you belong to one set of parents, when your body tells a different story. So here I am, one of many, chasing a list of names that grows and grows. Our DNA, our body language, is telling us that we are more recently related while our family trees are telling us that our paths have never crossed. When someone has lied to you (because they believed it to be the truth themselves or they were ashamed--either way has the same effect), the trail goes cold. Even if you can go back to 1789 in your family history, if the lie started in 1937 your information is in fact trapped in 1937. Your body language is telling you a different story than the verbal language you've learned to speak. A match to a total stranger is telling you something is off. Since everybody else in the family speaks the same verbal language (the alternate truth), they can't help you.
There is a phrase that says "We are all connected". But, my body is not finding that to be true in the way that I assumed. Body language is proving difficult to interpret. It may be more accurate than verbal language, but what is spoken is a lot easier to understand... and accept. Families aren't made in a lab. Yet, in my case it seems that's where they are discovered.
Body language may in fact tell us more than the spoken word, but interpreting that language can still prove impossible at times. There is a different type of body language that I'm trying to decipher. If you want to go beneath the surface to get the truth, then you've got to go beneath the surface. The DNA in our bodies is the code to who we are and where we come from. While spoken language can tell us what others want us to believe, the body will tell us who we are.
There are problems I am running into in the search to uncover my family connections when it comes to verbal information. The first is that names are changing based off of literacy, pronunciation and marriages. I have always known my great grandmother as Sylvia Robinson. I always remembered her fondly even though I was only 2 years old when she died. I would ask to go see her all the time and I remember her front door, her house which was near my favorite store called Giant Tiger, and her two long silver "Native American" pigtail braids that framed her face.
Trying to find records for Sylvia Robinson proved impossible. I was able to find her death record, but nothing about her birth or family. It was only through the name of her cousin who's mother's name I traced, who's name had also changed multiple times, who was connected in a census to my great-grandmother, that I found out who she was. Sylvia, in the census, was Sylvester Miscoe. In another census, she is Sysvestra Misco and in another Sylvestra Miscoe. Notice the changes in the spelling of her first and last names. My great grandfather was Frank Scott, but there is no record of them living together, being married (no Sylvia Scott), or having any children together. No record of my grandmother's birth either, thought both her parents names (Scott and Misco) adorn her marriage record. Sylvia died a Robinson, and I had no clue how she ever became a Robinson.
The second problem I am running into is the perception of people in the years I am searching for vs. the perception we have of them now. My "Native American" great grandmother was listed on one census as Black. Another census used the words MULATTO to describe both my great grandmother and her mother. Native American turned out to be code for Afro-European, as my DNA test confirmed the census information. As for her mother, Charlotte (aka Sharlatt aka Sharlat aka Charlatt aka Charlatte), I can't get to her birth information to discover what her maiden name was or who her parents were. It's so far back I'm imagining that there is little chance a white person would have been willing or able to lay claims to having made a baby with a black person. Sylvia was born in 1902, Charlotte was born in 1872. In Mississippi. So... there's not a high chance I'm going to find out who her parents were.
The third problem is that we use our words to say that you belong to one set of parents, when your body tells a different story. So here I am, one of many, chasing a list of names that grows and grows. Our DNA, our body language, is telling us that we are more recently related while our family trees are telling us that our paths have never crossed. When someone has lied to you (because they believed it to be the truth themselves or they were ashamed--either way has the same effect), the trail goes cold. Even if you can go back to 1789 in your family history, if the lie started in 1937 your information is in fact trapped in 1937. Your body language is telling you a different story than the verbal language you've learned to speak. A match to a total stranger is telling you something is off. Since everybody else in the family speaks the same verbal language (the alternate truth), they can't help you.
There is a phrase that says "We are all connected". But, my body is not finding that to be true in the way that I assumed. Body language is proving difficult to interpret. It may be more accurate than verbal language, but what is spoken is a lot easier to understand... and accept. Families aren't made in a lab. Yet, in my case it seems that's where they are discovered.
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