ENDOGENOUS ANCESTORS
At the End of the Line
The transformation of the libido through symbols has occurred since the beginnings of humanity. Symbols were (and are) never devised consciously but always unconsciously. It is more than probable that most of the historical symbols derive directly from dreams or are at least influenced by them.
--Jung, C., Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 8. 2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 1972. 588 p. (p. 45-61
Endogenous means having an internal cause or origin, growing or originating from within an organism, or a disease or symptom not attributable to any external or environmental factor. In some sense, this describes our entanglement with our ancestors all the way back to the dawn of time -- a sort of spiritual endogenesis.
Sometimes large shoots spring from our root, while others are tiny branches. End-of-line ancestors are our research leading edge. Parents of some ancestors are unknown and virtually unknowable, at least at this time. We all have them. We think about them. We study them. We even dream about them. Once we find their parents, we do a quick Genealogy Happy Dance, and then it starts over again - we now have new end-of-line ancestors.
Who are your end-of-line ancestors? "Direct-line ancestors with no parents" option. Your direct-line ancestors who do not have known parents are your end-of-line ancestors. So what is the strategy for extending a line? Especially a line that has reached or nearly reached the theoretical or practical limit. There are a lot of posts and other articles on the so-called brick wall problem.
Historical Fiction
Place your ancestors in time and space. Where were you born? If you don't know, then that is the first step in your genealogical digging. Your mother was there when you were born. Your grandmother was there when your father was born and so forth and so on. So how did your mother get to where you were born? By the way, the same rule does not hold true for your father. He may have been just about anywhere or even deceased when you were born. We spend an awful lot of time looking for male members of our families when it is the females that hold all the links to all the information.
The idea is to locate at least one event in a particular location. The problem in finding your great-great-grandfather isn't really about him, it is about his children, at least one of whom survived to adulthood or you would not be here. There is one more rule, it may seem very cynical, but you have a much better chance of identifying the true mother of your ancestor than you do the true father. No matter how certain you may think you are, there is always a measure of uncertainty in any pedigree where the mothers are not positively identified. If you want to blindly ignore this principle, you do so at your own peril.
If you don't know where a relative was born or where he or she lived, then you are skipping a generation. Focus on the children. Find out as much as you can about the children. Where and when were they born? Where did they live? On and on and on. Focus on those events and places where you can positively identify the time period in which they lived and the place. Look for records at that time and in that place. Instead of spending years looking for your great-great-grandfather, spend you time looking for your great-grandfather and finding your great-great-grandfather just might take care of itself.
First, end-of-line ancestors are part of genealogy. That doesn't mean there is nothing you can do. Most often though people pound against the brick wall that is the end-of-line ancestor, never wavering. This usually results in nothing but frustration. Instead, you may need to attack the problem from a different angle or a different generation. Stand back from your end-of-line ancestor.
Some suffers invent imaginary ancestors or link to unproven connections. This delusion can be seen by the proliferation of ancestors named Mr. or Mrs. End-of-line on many online family trees. Some of these invented individuals take on the same name as the last verified ancestor with the same birthdate, and thereby allow the sufferer to extend the ancestral line for many generations. Both of these situations can be seen in the following screenshot where father and son have the same names and the same wives' names and the line is extended with a Mr. and Mrs.
Evaluate Where You Are
Evaluating where you are in your research means more than just simply looking at your pedigree chart or family group sheet of your end-of-line ancestor. It means reexamining all your research on that line up to this point. To effectively accomplish such a reevaluation requires that you have some method of organization when it comes to the copies you have made.
In addition to organizing the records you have found, you must also be tracking your negative research. After all, with the positive research, you have photocopies or transcriptions that let you know that you looked in a given source. With negative evidence, there is nothing to show for the search unless you are recording that information. Research logs are critical to this. Research logs should be used for both negative and positive research. A research log, when properly kept, can aid you during this time of reexamination.
What Are You Missing?
As you look at your pedigree chart and family group sheets, look at them from the aspect of what you might not have done in your research. With a discerning eye, see if you have jumped over some records in your zeal to get back another generation. It is tempting to skip records if our ancestors are showing up in the census records. But those records we skipped may hold the clues to where you should go next. They may be the records that prove your previous information is in error, especially if all you have has come from the census records.
Perhaps you might want to compare your research to a resources checklist to see what records you may have overlooked in your research. It is natural for us to stick with what we know. When comparing the records we have already checked with such a list, we often discover new resources that may solve the brick wall.
In Conclusion
Usually when you go back and review your past research you will often discover overlooked records or incorrect evaluations in past research. In some instances your ever growing knowledge and experience will give you a better eye to evaluating the information found and not found than you had when you originally did the research. If you find no information, after making a reasonably exhaustive search, you may be at the end of your line.
Pedigree Collapse - http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2011/10/pedigree-collapse-and-end-of-line.html
We are just beginning to learn what lurks in our genome and psyche, and what these ancestral forms or ancestral sequences mean to us today. Some hark back to the macroevolution of our species. Ancient viruses are still with us from our earliest common primate ancestors via proviral insertion. Ancient viral DNA may play a key role in how human stem cells work.
We also have relics from other hominid species, such as Neanderthal and Denisovan. Endogenous substances and processes are those that originate from within an organism, tissue, or cell. Endogenous viral elements (EVEs) are DNA sequences derived from viruses that are ancestrally inserted into the genomes of germ cells. Caused or produced by factors within a model, organism, organization, or system.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/do_shared_ervs_support_common_046751.html
http://www.fsmitha.com/time/timeline.htm
In The Forgotten Language, Erich Fromm opens up the world of symbolic language, “the one foreign language that each of us must learn.” Understanding symbols, he posits, helps us reach the hidden layers of our individual personalities, as well as connect with our common human experiences. By grasping the symbolic language of dreams, Fromm explains, we can then also understand the deeper wisdom of myths, art, and literature. This also gives us access to what we, and our society, usually repress.
"The murder of speech is the self-murder of the human animal, a suicidal evisceration of our species' specific endowment. Like tigers losing their stripes, like beached whales and blind eagles are we without our rhetoric. Speech is our body, speech is our shape, speech is our beauty." (James Hillman)
Dead Ends are where real research begins.
What is it, at this moment and in this individual, that represents the natural urge of life? That is the question. That question neither science, nor worldly wisdom, nor religion, nor the best of advice can resolve for him. The resolution can come solely from absolutely impartial observation of those psychological germs of life which are born of the natural collaboration of the conscious and the unconscious on the one hand and of the individual and the collective on the other. Where do we find these germs of life? One man seeks them in the conscious, another in the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 290.
The transformation of the libido through symbols has occurred since the beginnings of humanity. Symbols were (and are) never devised consciously but always unconsciously. It is more than probable that most of the historical symbols derive directly from dreams or are at least influenced by them.
--Jung, C., Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 8. 2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 1972. 588 p. (p. 45-61
Endogenous means having an internal cause or origin, growing or originating from within an organism, or a disease or symptom not attributable to any external or environmental factor. In some sense, this describes our entanglement with our ancestors all the way back to the dawn of time -- a sort of spiritual endogenesis.
Sometimes large shoots spring from our root, while others are tiny branches. End-of-line ancestors are our research leading edge. Parents of some ancestors are unknown and virtually unknowable, at least at this time. We all have them. We think about them. We study them. We even dream about them. Once we find their parents, we do a quick Genealogy Happy Dance, and then it starts over again - we now have new end-of-line ancestors.
Who are your end-of-line ancestors? "Direct-line ancestors with no parents" option. Your direct-line ancestors who do not have known parents are your end-of-line ancestors. So what is the strategy for extending a line? Especially a line that has reached or nearly reached the theoretical or practical limit. There are a lot of posts and other articles on the so-called brick wall problem.
Historical Fiction
Place your ancestors in time and space. Where were you born? If you don't know, then that is the first step in your genealogical digging. Your mother was there when you were born. Your grandmother was there when your father was born and so forth and so on. So how did your mother get to where you were born? By the way, the same rule does not hold true for your father. He may have been just about anywhere or even deceased when you were born. We spend an awful lot of time looking for male members of our families when it is the females that hold all the links to all the information.
The idea is to locate at least one event in a particular location. The problem in finding your great-great-grandfather isn't really about him, it is about his children, at least one of whom survived to adulthood or you would not be here. There is one more rule, it may seem very cynical, but you have a much better chance of identifying the true mother of your ancestor than you do the true father. No matter how certain you may think you are, there is always a measure of uncertainty in any pedigree where the mothers are not positively identified. If you want to blindly ignore this principle, you do so at your own peril.
If you don't know where a relative was born or where he or she lived, then you are skipping a generation. Focus on the children. Find out as much as you can about the children. Where and when were they born? Where did they live? On and on and on. Focus on those events and places where you can positively identify the time period in which they lived and the place. Look for records at that time and in that place. Instead of spending years looking for your great-great-grandfather, spend you time looking for your great-grandfather and finding your great-great-grandfather just might take care of itself.
First, end-of-line ancestors are part of genealogy. That doesn't mean there is nothing you can do. Most often though people pound against the brick wall that is the end-of-line ancestor, never wavering. This usually results in nothing but frustration. Instead, you may need to attack the problem from a different angle or a different generation. Stand back from your end-of-line ancestor.
Some suffers invent imaginary ancestors or link to unproven connections. This delusion can be seen by the proliferation of ancestors named Mr. or Mrs. End-of-line on many online family trees. Some of these invented individuals take on the same name as the last verified ancestor with the same birthdate, and thereby allow the sufferer to extend the ancestral line for many generations. Both of these situations can be seen in the following screenshot where father and son have the same names and the same wives' names and the line is extended with a Mr. and Mrs.
Evaluate Where You Are
Evaluating where you are in your research means more than just simply looking at your pedigree chart or family group sheet of your end-of-line ancestor. It means reexamining all your research on that line up to this point. To effectively accomplish such a reevaluation requires that you have some method of organization when it comes to the copies you have made.
In addition to organizing the records you have found, you must also be tracking your negative research. After all, with the positive research, you have photocopies or transcriptions that let you know that you looked in a given source. With negative evidence, there is nothing to show for the search unless you are recording that information. Research logs are critical to this. Research logs should be used for both negative and positive research. A research log, when properly kept, can aid you during this time of reexamination.
What Are You Missing?
As you look at your pedigree chart and family group sheets, look at them from the aspect of what you might not have done in your research. With a discerning eye, see if you have jumped over some records in your zeal to get back another generation. It is tempting to skip records if our ancestors are showing up in the census records. But those records we skipped may hold the clues to where you should go next. They may be the records that prove your previous information is in error, especially if all you have has come from the census records.
Perhaps you might want to compare your research to a resources checklist to see what records you may have overlooked in your research. It is natural for us to stick with what we know. When comparing the records we have already checked with such a list, we often discover new resources that may solve the brick wall.
In Conclusion
Usually when you go back and review your past research you will often discover overlooked records or incorrect evaluations in past research. In some instances your ever growing knowledge and experience will give you a better eye to evaluating the information found and not found than you had when you originally did the research. If you find no information, after making a reasonably exhaustive search, you may be at the end of your line.
Pedigree Collapse - http://genealogysstar.blogspot.com/2011/10/pedigree-collapse-and-end-of-line.html
We are just beginning to learn what lurks in our genome and psyche, and what these ancestral forms or ancestral sequences mean to us today. Some hark back to the macroevolution of our species. Ancient viruses are still with us from our earliest common primate ancestors via proviral insertion. Ancient viral DNA may play a key role in how human stem cells work.
We also have relics from other hominid species, such as Neanderthal and Denisovan. Endogenous substances and processes are those that originate from within an organism, tissue, or cell. Endogenous viral elements (EVEs) are DNA sequences derived from viruses that are ancestrally inserted into the genomes of germ cells. Caused or produced by factors within a model, organism, organization, or system.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/do_shared_ervs_support_common_046751.html
http://www.fsmitha.com/time/timeline.htm
In The Forgotten Language, Erich Fromm opens up the world of symbolic language, “the one foreign language that each of us must learn.” Understanding symbols, he posits, helps us reach the hidden layers of our individual personalities, as well as connect with our common human experiences. By grasping the symbolic language of dreams, Fromm explains, we can then also understand the deeper wisdom of myths, art, and literature. This also gives us access to what we, and our society, usually repress.
"The murder of speech is the self-murder of the human animal, a suicidal evisceration of our species' specific endowment. Like tigers losing their stripes, like beached whales and blind eagles are we without our rhetoric. Speech is our body, speech is our shape, speech is our beauty." (James Hillman)
Dead Ends are where real research begins.
What is it, at this moment and in this individual, that represents the natural urge of life? That is the question. That question neither science, nor worldly wisdom, nor religion, nor the best of advice can resolve for him. The resolution can come solely from absolutely impartial observation of those psychological germs of life which are born of the natural collaboration of the conscious and the unconscious on the one hand and of the individual and the collective on the other. Where do we find these germs of life? One man seeks them in the conscious, another in the unconscious. ~Carl Jung, CW 7, Page 290.
(c)2013-2016; All Rights Reserved, Iona Miller, Sangreality Trust
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[email protected]
Fair Use Notice
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.