I’ve had a lot of fun over the last year going through my family’s genealogy. Digging into rumors and fact, old documents and family stories (Spoiler alert: I was lied to as a child, and we are not, alas, illicit descendants of Queen Victoria). And as I’ve done that and have seen some of the struggles that my ancestors overcame, I’m struck by how much my financial heritage—my financial DNA, so to speak—influences my life now.
Entrepreneurial Ancestors
I’ve written briefly about my family’s farm, but I want to make sure to give proper credit to how big of a deal it is that our farm has survived for 150 years. That means my ancestors kept the farm afloat during the Great Depression, decades of farm land consolidation, and the farm crisis of the 1980’s. That takes stamina, and business savvy, and also a very healthy dose of good luck. It means that we’ve been cultivating that land for longer than some of the U.S. states have existed, and we’ve flourished.
It also means that my ancestors showed up in the Midwest at a time when there wasn’t much there. Different branches of my family tree started in Virginia, New York, or Connecticut. They chose to leave the civilization of those East Coast locations to start something new. That adventurous spirit is something I see in myself today. It’s also something I want to nourish in myself today. It’s too easy to stick with the status quo and keep on the straightforward path, but I want to make my mark and explore different passions.
Frugality and the Great Depression
My grandmother was a child during the Great Depression, but also during the economic instability in Germany during that time, when she still had family in the region. She remembers never having enough, but even more poignantly, she remembers sending every scrap of extra they had back to family in Europe, who were suffering even more than they were. She once told me a story of a winter coat that she loved. One day, it went missing, and her mother told her it had been sent to their relatives in Germany, who needed it more.
As a result of that childhood experience, my grandmother saved everything. We never went out to eat, and she cooked everything at home. But she also hoarded my mother’s childhood clothes, newspapers, and other random household items. She had spent so much time going without that she couldn’t get rid of things that “might still be useful.” When she died, my family helped clean out the farmhouse. There was so much stuff in the basement that we could only walk through a 1-foot wide path at the beginning. The attic was even worse.
I see that tendency in my mom now, and also to some extent in myself. Sometimes, I have to physically stop myself from taking free things I don’t need or keeping things I know I don’t use. I have to stop myself from buying things just because. I love the idea of minimalism, but I also place quite a bit of sentimental value on things. This is a cognitive battle I’ll continue to fight until I find some sort of happy middle ground. And to be fair, my grandma had some pretty awesome stuff in that basement…
I’ve learned so many other things from exploring my heritage. I’d encourage you to do the same, and to think about the lessons that you might have inherited from those ancestors. Both the good ones, as well as the cautionary tales.
Anyone else have an awesome financial story about an ancestor? I’d love to hear it!