i blogged this morning. unfortunately, i could have slammed my head on the keyboard and probably come up with more interesting content, so i did what i felt necessary to not drive everybody away…i deleted the post. don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.
a few moments ago, i came up with the idea of a “Fiction Friday”. it’s that special day once a week when i post something… fictional. obviously i haven’t quite worked out the rules yet, but i’m thinking that it’s going to be a no holds barred anything goes kind of post…as long as it is, or is about fiction. 
that being said, today’s Fiction Friday is going to be on the subject of fictional records. my father and a few relatives of mine are getting heavily into genealogy. i don’t quite get the fascination with it… honestly, if all we have to go on are a few sketchy court records, ships’ logs and a faded crinkly picture of a man and his daughter that *might* have our ears, then i just don’t hold much faith that the information is accurate. especially since the majority of the world traces family lines through the male line. think about it. the male line.
here’s a hypothetical situation for you. a scottish man takes on, let’s say, a danish wife. this danish wife comes from her ma and da’s fresh off the farm, and on the eve of their wedding they board a ship to the new country where she is raped (or seduced?) by an irish lad while the scotsman is hanging overboard, seasick. it’s a one time thing… she never says a word about it, and carries the secret to her grave. they land, the scotsman is feeling much better, and gets a little lovin’ from his wife. he doesn’t know that she’s already pregnant with the irishman’s child. that child is forever recorded in history as being a danish-scot… and when someone like my dad sees that he’s got a scotsman in his lineage, he goes batshit nuts ’cause it’s just so damn cool. he buys the kilt, gets the tattoo of the scotsman’s clan, and brags about his scottish heritage to all who will listen.
but the thing is, he’s not a speck scottish. just because the records say your great great grandpapa was from this place doesn’t make it so. what if instead of being raped, they did in fact have a legitimate child…but the scotsman was really an english lad on the run, and didn’t want it to go on record that he’s english?
i think historical records in this world should be taken with a grain of salt. the only thing we know for sure, is that the danish woman had a kid, and even those records could be fibbed somehow. oh sure, the big stuff is believable, and the more modern technology gets in the world, the more reliable information is… but you go back to civil war times (a mere 150 years ago) and the records are mostly faded ink on yellowed parchment. they certainly didn’t have paternity testing back then, so how do you really know who your decendants are? yeah, there’s always the obvious markers, such as when two different races mix (it’s pretty obvious when the white mistress had an affair with her black slave) or if you pop out a kid who is the spittin’ image of yer great uncle johnny. most of the time, however, the question of parentage is a bit more ambiguous based on looks alone.
of course, i’m not trying to knock your scottish pride, or diss the cool “santa maria” tattoo you have on your ass ’cause that’s how your great great uncle’s pee-paw came to the states.
i’m jus’ sayin’ is all.
i love hearing about history, and different cultures. i love visiting old places and historical landmarks because of the stories that are associated with them, but i always take detailed information with a grain of salt. i don’t disbelieve it- but i’m not going to get my family’s scottish crest tattoo’d to my ass just because a bunch of old books have a few scratchy signatures that assume parentage.
you know, it’s funny…i didn’t intent this post to be a rant about the inconsistencies of tracing genealogy. but the possibility of one’s entire heritage being based on a lie is good enough for fiction friday… right???