01-23-2024: The Struggles of Looking for Info on Your Ancestors and Other Things
(Warning: This is blog mention Donald Trump, some swearing and harassment. Please take care before reading on.)
I’m usually carious on my family history, like the thought comes and goes occasionally. I know that I’m related to the 3rd president of the United States from one of his slaves (who were also the half-sister of his decrease wife). I also know that I have some Swiss blood, tracing back to the 17th century. Oh, that’s all on my mom’s side of the family, thanks to the hard research that one of my older cousins did on their free-time when they’re not busy studying in university. As for my daddy’s side of the family, I barely know anything about them. Beside the fact that both of his parents were long dead before I was born, he has 3 older sisters, my parental grandmother has 3 brothers from an old 1920s’ photo that is hanging in the kitchen and her parents (my parental great-grandparents) were originally from Italy.
So on a random Sunday morning, I mention mom about that I might gain Italian citizenship if I can find info on my great-grandparents (mostly from my great-grandfather due to some weird law that Italy have when it comes to proving their ancestors from the male’s side) and that I want to know more info about daddy’s side of the family. Mom likes the idea and then she wondered if I do find a way to get Italian citizenship, how I will get her one too. The reason why I mention of getting an Italian passport due to the fear that Donald Trump (or any right-wing asshole) might become president and try to end democracy as we know it. Then at the same time, I don’t want my older sister and her children stuck here if I do get citizenship and somehow get mom aboard.
Eventually after getting her permission, I’m using a free 2 week trail for Ancestry.com (which people have strong opinions on the site) to try looking for any information. But it’s hard. There’s barely info on both my paternal grandparents on the site and the only time my paternal grandmother is mention is on daddy’s obituary! It doesn’t help that I don’t know their birthdays, which can make things easy, or my paternal grandmother’s maiden name. Thankfully mom helped me out on the maiden name part as she actually remembered (and if you’re wondering, it’s very Italian). As for their birthdays, it might help if mom still has daddy’s birth certificate, which has their age and birthdays. Of course, that means going through mom’s files in her office and she won’t let me do that as she worries that I can misplace some of her more important papers.
Despite that, at least it’s keeping me occupied from going on most social media sites. You see last week, I have my first meltdown in 8 months due to various things that happened in the past few days, which then boiled up me, crying in my attached bathroom at 5 in the morning to not wake up everyone on the 2nd floor. One of those things was hearing that my favorite YouTuber was accused of harassment from another YouTuber before confirming it was a miscommunication on both sides (the person who accused him actually consent with him at the start of their conversation but he pushed her boundaries when she tells him to stop). The meltdown came from a Tumblr post that uses the #actually autism tag because both YouTubers were autistic. The person in question said that we need to boycott him and his friends for what he has done! This made me upset it as they’re saying to punish his friends, who had no part of this! Since then, I blocked that person and deleted the post in question that I reblogged. As for anyone who was on Tumblr when you saw my frantic posts, I’m sorry about that.
I even wrote a blog on all that in full detail! It was nearly 8 pages long and it mentions how all this reminds me what happened at my last job, which caused me to quit in fear. I was supposed to post it two days ago, but I was against it as I was very emotional when I wrote it. Instead, I rather wait until things calms down and that I’m in a better mental state before posting it. Despite what happened with them, it could’ve been worst and the fact he apologized the day after reading her receipts that show the two talking on their DM (it’s was on Twitter, of course), it shows that he’s taking responsibility for what he did. Still, I lost some respect with him and decided that I’m going to take a break from watching his videos until I mentally recover from this.
As for me getting off of most of social media (beside NeoCities and possibly Reddit), I feel like this is a preview on what I’m going to do in mid-October as I’m planning to get off, 2 weeks before Election Day, fearing there will be misinformation about the election and that Trump might end up as president again. So far, it’s working alright. I might return to Tumblr later this week as I feel like my mental health is in a better state, compared to last week. And I’ll learn to not jump to the conclusion before hearing the full truth, which led me to my first meltdown in months (and that I’m gullible when it comes to serious stuff, like harassment and sexual assault). Hopefully by the time I get off of most social media in mid-October, I can find more information on my daddy’s side of the family.
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