Look into ancestry shows immigrant history

Geneaology, to me, is a fascinating sublect, so long as someone else is doing it.

We’ve never known much about my dad’s side of the family, particularly his mother’s side.

My mom’s roots lie in a culture where oral tradition, at least until the mid 20th century, was pretty reliable, but not so much in my dad’s case.

My wife’s cousin, who is into genealogy via Internet, did a trackdown of the Ortiz family since their arrival from Spain, back in the 1700’s.

Among the tracks she found were those of an Ortiz female cousin, back in the 1840’s, who married a fellow named Felix Davis, who was a trapper/trader on the Santa Fe Trail.

Of course we’ve speculated whether or not that might be an “Uncle Felix” to me (Odds — probably not). On the other hand, I could’ve been happy as a trapper/trader.

So enters my sister-in-law, who is also into geneaology via Internet, in contrast with my brother, whose sense of history goes back only to last week’s episode of Family Guy.

She reveals to my dad, who reveals to me, that one of our long ago ancestors, a Thomas White, is the subject of a monument  in a cemetery. His claim to a monument: Participation in the Boston Tea Party.

Hey, maybe I could join Daughters of the American Revolution, which a friend of mine is in. Oh yeah, I forgot — you have to be a girl.

At any rate, it reminds me of the break for freedom made by the northeast colonists, governed by an England which for many of them, wasn’t even their ethnicity (and which most others had never seen) and of the similar feelings shared by Hispanic folks, centuries residents in the southwest, who may have felt it was a little lame being governed by someone as far away as Mexico.

Independence Day is symbolic of one of the best facets of our country.

We would be twisting the truth if we pretended that we are the only nation which has fought for independence, on several fronts, from the several powers that were involved.

We would be twisting the truth because such wars and struggles have been a recurring theme in human history.

However, the theme of independence seems especially poignant at any time in history — the 1980’s with the Southeast Asian boat people and the Sanctuary movement, later that same decade with Cuban and Haitian refugees —when men and women are simply trying to come here to be free from oppression and create a better life.

In the under-current of backlash against immigration — a particularly vicious example of which I saw this past week — do we dare lose sight of the fact that most immigrants simply want to make a better life for themselves and their loved ones ?

Oh yes, just to put your mind at ease — my sister-in-law says she can find out whether or not there was a Felix Davis born in our branch of the family around 1810, and whether or not he disappeared ( translated: lit out for the west, probably one step ahead of the law) sometime in the 1830’s.

I am sure that will be a burning issue for all of us.

Clyde Davis is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Portales and a college instructor. He can be contacted at: clyde_davis@yahoo.com