Hi everyone!
It's time to get to know another one of our wonderful WikiTreers. This week's member is Zachary Jon Smith.
Zachary became a Wiki Genealogist in April 2017. He is currently working on Protestant Missions under the Religion Project.
When and how did you get interested in family history?
My parents received a beautiful family tree painting as a wedding present. The names of my ancestors back through my 2nd-great-grandparents are elegantly inscribed on the branches of a sturdy tree. This image stirred my childhood curiosity.
At just nine years old, I got serious about discovering my ancestors and relatives. I started writing down names, birthdays, and anniversaries in one of those cheap lined paper notebooks you can get at Walmart. I eventually branched out (insert tepid laughter) to FamilyTreeMaker (did anyone else use FTM?), FindAGrave, and FamilySearch. In 2017, I finally discovered WikiTree, my favorite hub for genealogy since then. I joined WikiTree at age 15 and enjoyed being a rare teen genealogist (one blogger tried to coin the term teenealogist but I don’t think that caught on).
I’ve always loved history and the concept of time travel. I think that those two facts may at least partially explain my obsession with genealogy. Researching and preserving my family history gives me a vehicle to the past. It’s as close as I’ll get in this life to traveling back in time and experiencing what life was like in 1945, 1776, 1215, or 800. In a way, I can time travel vicariously as I uncover the stories and experiences of my forebears.
It can be frustrating sometimes, because I am so rarely permitted more than a small glimpse into the lives of my ancestors. A christening date and location. Six nearly identical marriage records. An implausible family story passed down with affection (if not accuracy) through the generations.
I wish for more. More sources. More pieces of her jigsaw puzzle. More pixels in the grainy photograph that is all that remains of his story. I want to be like Shelley’s sculptor in “Ozymandias,” who “well those passions read / Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things.” I want to be a careful archaeologist in my ancestral excavation. Often, I have to rely on tiny shards of pottery and a few misshapen beads.
I see the varied experiences of my ancestors as a montage. A teenage boy knocked to the ground by a bullet on a Civil War battlefield, almost miraculously spared by his well-placed belt buckle. A small Susquehannock girl bereft of mother and father, embraced by a couple from a different people group—a group she would have had reason to treat with hostility. A medieval Armenian princess from the Greek Orthodox faith who became a queen of Crusades-era Jerusalem—she would orchestrate her husband’s ransom at great personal risk. Iowa farmers. Pennsylvania pastors. Immigrants from Hammerfest, Herefordshire, Hillegersberg, and Heidelberg. A wife and mother who never made it across the Atlantic—a lock of her hair has been preserved in a family Bible for generations.
My ancestors’ choices and experiences—soldiers, Mayflower passengers, immigrants, colonists, murderers, enslavers, pastors, congregants, farmers, teachers, orphans, sheriffs, nobles, medical professionals, queens, kings, revolutionaries, factory workers, musicians, peasants—these stories coalesce to form a vivid kaleidoscope of beauty and brokenness that is mine by birthright. It’s an Olympic torch I bear but didn’t sign up to carry and am never quite sure what to do with.
And I watch as my ancestry’s kaleidoscope shrinks to take its place as a tiny speck in the galaxy of human stories. I realize how small I am in the grand scheme of history and the vastness of spacetime. But nonetheless, I do have this incredible gift of life, for a time. The words of martyred missionary Jim Elliot have always resonated with me: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” Like Jim, I hope that my life, including my work on WikiTree, will be able to accomplish lasting good that will endure long after my epitaph is carved.
What are some of your interests outside of genealogy?
I love learning, just in general. I love the humanities. I love having deep conversations with one or two other people. I love good stories. As it turns out, I have a very long list of hobbies and interests. Feel free to check out my profile if you’re interested in learning more about them.
What is your genealogical research focus?
I have more than one focus. I generally divide my time between researching and adding my ancestors and relatives (and doing the same for friends and extended family), adding and connecting notables, cleaning up profiles and adding sources and categories, and pursuing other rabbit trails that pique my interest.
(interview continues in comments)
