Not Just One Thing

a life in technicolor

Jan 16, 2025

I am a yoga teacher. This is probably the last thing you thought you'd see when you opened a post from an account about Genealogy, but it is the absolute truth.

I am a yoga teacher.

I have been practicing yoga and meditation for thirty years and teaching them for half of that time. I teach three classes a week, every week, and sometimes more if I sub for someone else's class.

This is part of who I am, just as being a genealogist and a history enthusiast is part of who I am. On top of these things, I am also a published short story author, sometimes work as a writing coach, have worked as a reporter/journalist, and even sold a few paintings and photographs in my time. Oh, and one sculpture, too.

I usually think about these facets of my life when I'm shuffling around my ever-growing to-do list on days I forget to compartmentalize each category of my life to remain sane. Yet, it also comes up when I am researching ancestry.

We, family historians and genealogists, work to reconstruct the lives of those who came before us. We're doing this in a time when we are taught to be ONE THING, to be A BRAND, to streamline and whittle down and keep things perfect and pristine—but in reality, people are always the opposite. People are rarely one thing and they tend to be messy.

I've spoken about presentism and bias here in the past because it is crucial to step out of the ideas that wallpaper our lives in these modern times. The 24/7 news and social media bombardment that tells us who we are, who we should be, who we need to be can be crippling if we don't learn how to step away.

So, as researchers, it's critical to understand the negative effects presentism and bias have on our research. We need to have space and understanding to accurately learn about and understand who our ancestors were and how to recognize the many facets of their lives.

Yet, it is also important to understand this train of thought can be harmful to our lives, because, after a time, we begin to believe that narrative that we can only be that ONE thing.

We can only be the genealogist, the yoga teacher, the author, or the artist. Yet, I know in my bones that being all of them allows me to see those I am researching from more than one point of view.

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Being a yoga teacher helps me understand the physical toll of manual labor on my steel factory worker ancestors and how their bodies might have moved through their daily tasks. My meditation practice gives me patience when I hit those inevitable brick walls in research. My experience as a journalist taught me to dig deeper, to look beyond the obvious sources, and to question everything until I find enough sources to either prove or disprove my working theories—each of these skills serves me well in genealogy.

When I find an ancestor who was both a carriage trimmer and a Sunday school teacher or a farmer who also wrote poetry, I'm not surprised. I understand them. Their complexity mirrors my own. They, too, refused to be confined to a single box, even if census, military and school records sometimes try to put them there.

The truth is that our ancestors were as layered and nuanced as we are today. That stern-looking woman in the Victorian photograph might have had a wicked sense of humor, something she was unable to share in the minutes she had to hold still to take that photograph. The hardworking coal miner might have played violin at the local dance hall each weekend. The plumber might have been an amateur astronomer, or the woman keeping house was also an incredible wood craftsman.

Each person contained multitudes, just as we do.

This understanding enriches our research. When we look beyond the basic facts—the dates, the occupations, the locations—the idea that we can only be one thing—we start to see our ancestors as complete, well-rounded, messy human beings.

Once we accept all of that, we can begin to ask different questions: What did they do for enjoyment? What were their hidden talents? What dreams did they harbor alongside their daily responsibilities?

So, perhaps, being "just" a genealogist isn't enough. Perhaps we need to be many things to truly understand the many things our ancestors were. Let this be a reminder that our diverse experiences and interests don't dilute our expertise—they enhance it. They provide us different lenses through which to view the past and different ways to connect with and understand the lives we're researching.

In embracing all these parts of ourselves, we become better researchers, better storytellers, and better custodians of our ancestors' memories. In the end, genealogy isn't just about collecting names and dates—it's about understanding lives. And lives, both past and present, are wonderfully, magnificently messy and complex. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

For me, that means, I will continue to be the yoga teacher and an author, a writing coach and an artist—on top of working as a genealogist. I will continue to meditate and paint, and, of course, learn as much as I can about those who came before me, with an open mind and objectivity.

Not Just One Thing

a life in technicolor

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