Traditional Core American Values (Lessons From Genealogy)

I think there is something valuable we can learn from our traditional core American values, a mode of thought that seems lost on today’s society and that’s the “hell or high water” attitude in knowing what you want and getting it! Maybe it’s the Texas roots in me but I believe we can learn a few lessons from genealogy, from those that came before us who overcame their own trials and tribulations to achieve their dreams; those that made us who we are.

Every so often I think it’s a good thing to just slow down and take stock of our BELIEFS and remember that our family history via our ancestors can be our best teachers. The media pummels us with what they want us to know, and in becoming propagandic sponges we slowly shift away from our ancestral past and thereby our traditional core American values.

The progress and preeminence of the United States as a nation today is largely the result of European values being transmitted from one continent to another in successive waves. Each of those waves from the first English colonists to the Scots to the Irish to the Germans to the Eastern Europeans to the Italians and beyond, had to carry with them a supremely strong will and an iron-clad resolve in order to transplant their work-centric ethics from the ‘old country’ to this new land.

The situations that Europeans left behind were often dire. In 17th century England prices were rising, industrialization meant the reshaping of the traditional Manorial society, coupled with rising population meant that there were a lot of families that the English Crown deemed aberrant. Looking for a new opportunity in the Americas was fraught with danger; however, the rewards were often far greater than what they could have achieved back home.

With successive waves of Scottish and Irish immigrants to the eastern seaboard in the 17th and 18th century, the original English colonists often became annoyed at these Celtic interlopers and moved in droves either south or west. Even back then, to the ways of the Englishman, their Scotch, Irish, and Welsh neighbors were seen as uncivilized and an affront to the values of many ‘traditional’ families. Such was life in the early Virginia Colony.

However, even though those Celtic families had it rough, they were made of incredibly hardy stock and of an intensely creative mind. Not taking any fuss from their former and historical enemies from medieval times, the Scots, Irish, and Welsh, many of whom were already here along with the very first British colonists, set down their roots and continued their progress in America to forge our traditional core American values.

That is also the story of some of the South’s oldest families and lineages!

The Irish and Germans mainly settled in the Northern parts of the United States, although a few ventured down as far as Texas in the 1700s and especially 1800s. The Irish were primarily known for their arrival before and during the Civil War because of the Irish Potato Famine which kicked off around 1845. During the Civil War era (1861-1865) the Irish fought bravely for both the Union and the Confederacy. The mere fact that these newly-arrived immigrants were handed rifles upon landing on a foreign shore and asked to fight for their new country is an astounding tale of the ‘measure of a man’ and a tell tale of their future contributions to the USA.

The VALUES that our European antecedents brought with them were “cultural.” Those cultural tenets are HARD WORK, FAMILY, and NEVER GIVE UP. Our traditional core American values is about knowing what you want and getting it.

European culture, and therefore American culture, is also about INGENUITY and INDUSTRIOUSNESS. The creativity of thought that produces such amazing things and technologies is a cornerstone of Western civilization. With respect to other cultures to the east of Europe they do deserve a ton of credit as many of the innovations that the British or Germans made in mathematics, for example, came from Italy, and before that from the Middle East and China. The same can be said in spades for cartography, or map making.

The life and privileges we have today are a direct result of the fortitude of our ancestors. Forging through forests, purchasing land, founding cities and government centers, the United States grew colony by colony, state by state. Even though many of the states and regions of the then-expanding country did not always agree on what is right and wrong, the country grew. It was the sense of ingenuity and industriousness that grew it into what it is today.

During the industrial revolution and the expansion of the infrastructure of the United States headed by some of history’s more controversial figures, i.e., the Robber Barons of the 19th century, Europe provided us with even more cultural richness. Families from the Baltics, Eastern Europe, and Italy entered the United States willing to work and contribute to this rich land.

The Balts (Lithuanians, Lativians, and Estonians), along with the Eastern Europeans and Italians served primarily as labor force workers who eventually scrimped and scraped to provide a better life for their families. They suffered in silence for the future generations who elevated themselves and were able to find great success. They showed the same ingenuity and toughness characteristic of the European mind and have contributed enormously to current American culture and conservative values.

Family history and genealogy is an ever-present reminder to us about who we are and the values that we espouse because of the challenges and successes of those that came before us. Those are our NATIONAL VALUES. If at all possible we need to maintain them and not let them erode under our feet while we become distracted.

The ways our ancestors forged ahead was certainly not always the easy way and our way to forge ahead with the values that they handed down to us will not always be easy. However, if we can learn anything from them it’s the value of perseverance, hard work, family, never giving up, industriousness and ingenuity; in short, the traditional core American values attitude was the mindset of our ancestors and the foundation of our national values today that we should all aspire to.