Ancestry

The church is known for family history, tracing family lines back to decades, hundreds, even thousands of years before our birth, to discover our heritage and gain a better understanding of where we came from. We know that we are children of Heavenly Parents who love us and want us to return to them again one day. But many don't know who we are as a matter of earthly lineage.

Gma B (dad's mom) and Papa (mom's dad) were the genealogists of the family. Gma B had tons of family history from hers and Gpa B's families, and Papa had done some research into his family line as well. Papa and Nana adopted mom after she was born, and all we have on her biological families are the names of her parents. We do have some work done for her adoptive family, but I would like to know more about her biological family, especially for medical reasons. One of these days I may break down and get a subscription to Ancestry or something like that and trace her family lines.

Gma B had a lot of family history work done before she passed. From her side of the family come some French and Native American lines, among others. The Native Americans in our family are of the Kaskaskia tribe, which from what I understand originated in Wisconsin, traveled to Illinois, then eventually became a part of the Peoria tribe in Oklahoma. My 9th-great-grandmother, Aramepinchone, was daughter of a tribal chief, Mamenthouensa, and an unknown mother. She was a key element in helping members of her tribe convert to Christianity, namely Catholicism. She married a French fur trader, Michel Accault, according to her father's wishes. She initially rejected the idea and was thrown out of her father's home, because she wished that her heart only be given to God and not any mortal man. But when she realized that she could help her tribe learn from the missionaries and convert to Christianity, she consented.

My family line comes from her second marriage to Michel Phillipe, another fur trader. It has been said that she eventually married one or two other men; quite a turn around from a woman who wanted only to belong to God! But her heart was still with Him as she helped others find Christianity. When she passed to the other side, she was given the honor of being buried under her pew in the church she attended, an honor that no other woman in that time had been given.

Of all the heritage in my family, I know more about the Native American lines than any others, mainly because we have such a great tie to that line. You could probably fit all the Native American blood in my body into my pinky finger, but it is there. I love learning about the culture of the Kaskaskia, even though there's little to be found. Along with a Kaskaskia-to-French dictionary, my dad has some text, I think a book, on his computer about the Kaskaskia, but I haven't read it in a long time. I'm grateful to the Catholic church and the records they kept, so my family could know more about our Native American heritage, and so we could have their work done in the temple.