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Janice Lorraine. It’s not much, but it’s my name. My mother gave it to me. For whatever reason that only she knows she felt it was a fitting name for a baby girl born in….well, now, the year’s really not important, is it? My father gave me a name also….my surname, Lloyd, and this is the name under which I could be found in the Wood River school system or at Dr. Taylor’s office or in my piano teacher’s card file. I kept that name for many years, that is, until I traded it for a new one at the end of a long church aisle.

I never really thought much about names. They seemed necessary enough, but I never really gave much consideration to their significance. I knew they were important to identify whether Mr. Gregory was screaming at me or two other Janice’s in Biology 101, but that was about the extent of my understanding.

My father, bless his heart, is 95 years old, and during a conversation one day not long ago I discovered that my father had no idea what his grandparents’ names were. He didn’t know where or when they were born or their vocation or anything else about them. It all seemed so sad. Then I realized that these unknown people were not only his grandparents, but my great-grandparents and, as the crook in the old Clint Eastwood movie said, “I gots to know.”

I started with what I did know…my father’s place of birth. I began to call and write to county vital records departments and librarians and archivists in Southern Illinois. I scoured the Internet using the information I gleaned from county records. Clues led to more clues. I finally spoke to a sympathetic elderly clerk at an old Kentucky courthouse who put her department to work on finding some answers.

After a week or so of research, she informed me of my great-grandparents’ names, their birth years, their siblings, and pointed me to several other Kentucky counties where I would do well to look. She said she had quite a bit of material and would mail it to me. I had no choice but to await snail mail.

While waiting for the arrival of the genealogy material, I took what I had learned and went back to the Internet. I typed in their names and was shocked to find them floating around in cyberspace…not just in name, but in photograph. Someone else had apparently been researching them as well. When the Kentucky research information arrived, I took that and the photographs down for dad to see. Not only did I have his grandparents’ names, but his great-grandparents and great-great grandparents. He smiled his broad smile to finally see what his grandparents looked like, and discovered family resemblances he had been unaware of.

We learned that one day in 1770 his great-great grandfather came to America from County Down, Ireland to settle in Rockingham County, North Carolina, and that he was a school teacher and a farmer. We learned dad’s mother was not one of seven children as he believed, but of fifteen and that she was a twin. We learned the family slowly made its way into the coal fields of Kentucky, then on up into Illinois.

With this new-found knowledge, I then had to turn my search to my mother’s people. Mom is 93 now and as I dug into research materials, she would say, yes, now I remember my mother talking about this person or that person. I discovered that mom was from a long line of farmers and Christians. Some were ministers, even holding services in their homes at times. I learned that the Beans had been MacBeans and sailed to America from Scotland in 1767 on a ship called “Admiral Hawk” and landed at Charleston, South Carolina, later moving on to Burke County, North Carolina, Franklin County, TN and finally in 1800 on up into Jefferson County, Illinois.

That’s odd, I thought. Both families immigrated here from the British Isles within three years of each other. I realized there might be no connection whatsoever, but then again, maybe there was. What I learned led me to believe that both families came here in response to the political climate and economy during those years. Ireland and Scotland were both under the heavy hand of English rule and were subject to their own brand of “taxation without representation”.

I began to realize just how important the information I had found was. It was not so much the names and dates or even the ethnicity that amazed me. It was the fact that two hundred forty years ago a man on each side of the family made a single decision. He said, “I’ll put my family on a boat and sail away. I’ll leave everything and everyone I’ve ever known and make a life in a new land. I’ll feed my family.” And here I am today.

It made me acutely aware that my decisions are not just about me. They will impact all the generations that come after me. I have begun to think, “How will this decision affect my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren?” “What will this decision say about me to future generations?”

As I poured through old census records, I realized that this information is now public record. Anyone can look to see whether his ancestor was a farmer, a brickmason or a cabinet maker. You can learn if your ancestor was slave or free. You can see their wealth or learn they resided at the county poor house. You can discover that your great-great grandfather was benevolent enough to allow his mother-in-law to live in his home, even though he already had ten mouths to feed. You can see that some people took in strangers as members of their own household. I’m sure at the time the information was being gathered, our ancestors felt they were merely complying with the law, not leaving a trail.

We all leave a trail, whether we intend to or not. My prayer is that the Lord will help me to make Godly choices and help me to leave a Christian heritage for those who follow me, and should He tarry and two hundred years from now someone is researching me, let them find evidence that I was a believer.

Scripture says, “A good name is rather to be chosen than riches.” Maybe Janice Lorraine isn’t such a bad name after all.

Janice Crow

Reader Comments

Janice Lorraine???? How many years have I known you and didn't know your middle name? Thanks for hte ammunition......... LOL

Deon Unthank
SoGospelNews.com
My Blog

Some people are like Slinkys…  Not really good for anything, but they
still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs -  Author Unknown

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