S1:E8 - Finding family in the wildest places

Hey y'all!

Today's podcast has two paths - one where I tell you a little about what my work includes, and the other is how intuition helped me make a family connection.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the podcast for Mom Strange Magic. I'm Kim, the voice and face behind Mom Strange Magic. And today I have got an interesting story for you. And I'm gonna start off first with giving a little more detail about the kind of work I do, and second, share a story with you that I find very interesting. And here comes Whiskey, you might hear cats in the background. She's trying to navigate the obstacle course I set up for her, and it is hilarious. So what is it that I do? And I have been a little vague about it only because right now in 2026 everything is wild, and it feels almost somewhat decadent and entitled to say that I have the resources to do these things. And the truth is, as far as resources, I'm using very old tech, and I'm this is a shoestring budget. So what I'm getting how I'm doing this is through the tools that there's a cat. Um my goodness. I'm using tools that I can either borrow or that are already on hand to help people. And how do I do that exactly? Mostly I listen, but where I have defaulted in all of the things that I have been credentialed, all of my experiences, is that folks arrive to my virtual back porch. Sometimes they show up on my physical back porch, and they are trying to figure out any aspect of their life, be it spiritual and or health, or somehow with their family tree, their genetics and their genealogy. And it's sometimes an issue that cannot find an answer through what we would know as conventional research. So looking for family trees online, using a DNA test to find ethnicity, and then taking those results and putting them into something that makes sense. Maybe they've been given a health diagnosis that they don't quite understand, and they want to understand it more deeply. And along with that, it could be causing a growth in their spiritual life, or it could be fostering some kind of discordant feelings within them. So they're trying to reconcile things like maybe their family had enslaved persons, or they're trying to reconcile what their DNA results have said, or they've put their DNA results into a commercial program that kind of gives them an outline of things to look out for genetically. Usually they want to figure out how to put that into a document to share with like their therapist, their face leader, or their medical provider. And I sort of help them pull that all into one document while also giving them a little bit of extra advice. So with the work that I do, I work in tandem with research that has a paper trail, and I use everything from the NIH to JSTOR to WorldCat to Family Trees to everything. And we sit together, the person and I do, and they share everything that they can think of through an intake. We talk about what it was like in their childhood, the kind of foods they liked, what their faith path was, what their wellness path is, and everything. And I sort of collect it into a basket and help them understand it. Um, I am someone that also supports things like dreams and intuition, as well as any kind of energetic visits that may not be seen as something that is science-based, but if you look up anything about the art of science, you will see that it includes very often a gut feeling. And I think that if we realize something about ourselves that we are human animals and we look at the animals around us, how birds or our pets know when bad weather is coming, things like that. If we overlook that part of ourselves, it it makes us miss out on the possibility of finding answers that can make us feel better. And that's just really kind of a long-winded way of saying that I help people. And now the other part of that is that I make things. And often after a client and I have worked together for a little bit, I will crochet what I call a little worry bowl. And they can either leave it here, and every morning I go through and I check on the bowls and I say little things like, May this person, you know, find answers that they are looking for, whatever it is agreed upon that we when we are when we have met in person, or I give them a bowl to take home, and anytime that they are worried about something, they can write it on a piece of paper and put it in that little bowl. And some may see that as strange magic, which, hello, mom's strange magic, but there is some psychology to that, and this is also, you know, things like a worry jar, or you can call it a prayer jar or prayer bowl, whatever, whatever works for you. And I came to this work after trying to put myself in a other kind of specific boxes that made it look, you know, like I can do this. Like I'm a holistic wellness with an eye for research or whatever. Um, and when I was lacking in my own journey through trying to figure things out in my life, I had to do this all on my own. And I sort of pieced something together. And a long time ago, like over 11 years ago, I had a program called the 10-week program where I helped people that had intellectual, emotional, or physical disabilities figure out routines that worked for themselves. And so what I do now is sort of adapted from that. And um yeah, so there, so there you go. Now, why is it important for me to share that with you before I get into the next part, which I've alluded to in my little snippet videos earlier this week, um, and my chair's making a lot of noise today, I'm sure you heard that, is that throughout my own life, there have been things that I remember that come from a place of maybe being an ancestral memory, things that foods I remember that I'm pretty sure that no one in my family made. Um, again, like pardon that the chairs being very loud right now. Um, and I have somehow visited places that when I go through my family history, my ancestral history, those people were there as well. And it really just made me start to think. And one of the things that I have wondered is where about is where I am now and the experiences that we have had here, and I've been like, there's got to be some kind of connection, and I've seen surnames in this area and the the county surrounding the area where I am that sort of line up with my family tree, but the genealogical gold standard is what does the census say? Or, you know, are there any legitimate genealogy books? Because there are people out there that absolutely love doing this and they want to have accurate genealogy, so they write these books and they do the research. Um, also, I'm very fond of genetics in general, specifically epigenetics, which, as I've mentioned before, was overlooked when Candace Peart began talking about it in the science field. And I think she really got diminished when she did, I think it was The Secret. Um I think that's it. And she talked about how we carry memories through our DNA, and now, you know, and it was she was kind of like laughed out of there, like, ha ha. But now epigenetics is a valid part of genetic research, and you know, you see how trauma affects families, and you also see how lack of food can affect families, or marrying it. I mean, you you can see this is a like a pretty discernible thing in your genetic profile, and when you start to look at the family tree, and you can see, oh my gosh, yes, this person had uh lost several husbands, um, or this person lived through um the yellow fever, or this person lived through the Spanish flu, you can see how that works. And you know, geneticists know that some and some families that have lived through things such as the Spanish flu, that their descendants kind of carry a little bit of an immunity to specific types of flu. So this isn't just like me out there going, woo, um, although I do love some, woo, not gonna lie, love the mystical. Um, and as I was researching a specific family line and getting very close to getting an answer and finding records, especially in the New Jersey Quaker meetings, and then you know, traveling over the Appalachian Mountains, down in, you know, down and through Virginia and over into Kentucky. Um, and I I started seeing some things, and my delightful brain that loves pattern recognition said, Hey, wait a minute, we we keep seeing these names over and over again, and these are names that are familiar to where you are right now. Let's see if we can make the connection. And uh as someone that once engaged in caving and spelunking, one of my favorite movies or one of my little favorite documents about Mammoth Cave is this line where it was like the the narrator's like, and they made the connection, and all of a sudden I made this huge connection where part of my maternal line married um a the the hunt line married into married a gano, um a gano, not a gano, um and that person that that John Gano had a tie to a family near where I live that may have been another part, it may have been another thread in the tapestry of my genealogical landscape. And I found it just in the the most circuitous way, and while also researching for something, I mean it just and it just became very mind-boggling to me that not only did that give me a clue to sort of what brought my formerly Quaker ancestors down into Kentucky and how they moved from being Quakers to part of the Baptist Society of Kentucky. Um, it really answered some questions. I'm like, oh, I I understand why I have that, you know, that one little branch, because when you start really fanning out into your family tree, you your family tree starts to look like the biggest, giantest tree on the planet. Um, it it looks kind of like a fan. And uh, you know, you start getting into your sixth and seventh great grandparents, and at this point, you're like, when you look at it, and it really chronologically, it's like 200 years ago, and that's just a blink of an eye in human history, and you you know, you start to really get tangible information on things that make you go, man, if things really do run in the family. The saying that the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree starts to become really on par, and not just as some sort of tale or aspect of folklore, you start to see a paper trail forming of these people. Now, where it can get difficult is when you start to make matches with DNA. Many people do not want to share their DNA, but a lot more people do because often, and I see this quite a bit in genealogical groups and in talking with other genealogists, that somehow folks want to tie themselves either to the original people of the United States, or you know, do they have indigenous heritage, or you know, are there where for where are their ancient ancestors and things of that nature? And while all of this, you know, there is a margin of error in this, some of it also comes from when you take these tests, you are asked to kind of self-report your ancestry or what the earliest um country of origin that you know of your family. What can be difficult is in my case, um, even though I learned this before I had my DNA done, is that sometimes the mother isn't the mother or the father isn't the father biologically, and it opens up a lot of questions. So you might take a DNA test and self-report as say Irish, but then when you get your DNA results back and you see that you're more German, that data is still in there. So there is kind of a margin of error. And when it also starts to get a little bit hinky is when you get into endogamic relationships. And while we would not like to think that our ancestors 200 years ago were intermarrying with each other, um, the fact of the matter is, especially if you have either very wealthy families or very poor families, that either one, they wanted to kind of keep that money in the family or keep that status in the family, and while that wasn't necessarily necessarily a brother and a sister marrying, it might be like two cousins, first cousins marrying, and as shocking as that is, and you know, is everybody oh, only the hillbillies did that, or only the no, they did not. I mean, hello, look at the monarchies of history, but anyway, and that can kind of sometimes be a little bit wonky genetically, right? And you'll see um matches in certain areas, and you'll get this thing back that says, Hey, that's that that's a potential, you know, first cousin three times removed or something, and you're like, but on my tree, and the scientists like, yes, yes, we see that. Let's go back, and so you know, that's kind of a problem. One of the other aspects of working with us outside of the genetic aspect is that you're going to see, let's say, for example, John Smith. And John Smith marries Betty Jones, and so the first kid they have is a is a boy, right? And so they're gonna name him probably John Smith, and then they have another child and it's a girl, and they name that person Betty Smith, right? So you've got Betty Jones, who married John Smith and is now Betty Smith, and then they had a kid named Betty Smith. And if you use Ancestry or any other kind of public genealogy tree, very often people will say, Oh, that's my Betty Smith, and add it and not check to see if there was any birth or death records, if there are any census records. And while they are considered genealogical gold standards, like if you can find that on paper, you can prove it. A lot of times it's very hard to discern the handwriting of the census taker. And sometimes when the census taker came and you didn't want to admit kind of what was going on in your family, you would give them the information that you wanted other people to hear. So while that paper trail is very important, it doesn't always tell the complete story. So you kind of have to look at the history, right? And then you got to look at like farms and deeds. What did they eat? What was their faith system? Do they have a family Bible? Is it listed? Can you find it? Um, and one of the great repositories of information, a lot of those are free. And plug for your local library, almost every local library, um, the main county aspect or the main branch for the county, or if you just have one branch in the county, nine times out of ten, there's going to be a genealogical room or a genealogy room. And the librarians love when you come in there because when you utilize the library, it helps keep the library open. Also, the state where you live, um, sometimes the primary state university will have all kinds of records, and if you cannot travel there, you can send an email or call. Sometimes they're gonna charge you a small fee to make a copy and send it to you, or they might even have a small fee if you ask to have that information emailed to you. And I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. There are so many wonderful genealogists online doing all kinds of great work. Many times on Ancestry, if you find a match and you go to that person's profile, you can, and it's it might say willing to help, and then they can give you information at the same time. I have found recently, um, not just in my experience, but other people have shared this with me as well, that that kind of willing to help has changed a little bit. Um, some people are very reserved about it, and I think rightfully so, given the fact that things like scams have come up, and having too much of your information out in the public can open yourself up for someone to take advantage of you. So I I really get it, but if you you know reach out to these people with a serious inquiry and say, hey, this is how far I have this is how far always the mysterious noises in this house. This is this is the information I have. Do you know a way that I can corroborate this? This or validate this. Um, because really, you're gonna be the one that's gonna have to do the work, you're gonna have to do it on your own. And if you want someone else to do it for you, you're gonna have to give them some money because something buy them some lunch, do so, you know. Don't don't be very, you know, be very upfront. If you don't have a lot of money, say, hey, I don't have a lot of money. Is there something that you would be willing to help me with for free? Or um, hey, I don't have a lot of money, but here's a$20 gift card I got. Um, because you're paying someone for their time. And I'm not just saying this because this is the work I do a lot, you know, this is part of the basket of things that I do. Um, it's because when I have gotten to this point, and I have I have sent little notes like that to other people, like, hey, this is this is what I have, what can I get for this? And very often it is enough to launch me into finding to making that connection. So this week I am going to visit some places to try to find information on how my personal family line ties to a family line in the area that I live and how what that story is, because that story will impact not just me, even though this person is not in my direct line, it's a sister of my direct line, but still um genetically would, you know, this person um and and uh the the grandfather, the sixth great-grandfather, whatever, would have a genetic link to it. Um and so you know, my ancestor would definitely be impacted by what their sibling was doing. Um just the simple fact that I might be in the very area that my ancestors were in is sort of mind-boggling. And I mean, truly in Kentucky, I mean, you know, is is that like something absolutely earth-shattering? Not exactly, but is it kind of cool? Absolutely, and it explains sort of why I keep feeling pulled to go to these certain parts of the state in which I live and to other states, and it it could explain things for me that I can put together and give to my children and and share with others. So yeah, when you when you start on a path of healing, um, it opens up all kinds of things. And how I want to end this today, because it's very important, and I will be talking about it much more in the future, is that I can only do this because of my resources. There are millions of people in the world that do not have access to their family history, and that's not an exaggeration. Um, it has to do with the fact that they are in poverty. There is, and that makes me very sad because I think we should all know kind of our extended ancestry just to know the stories of who we are and how we came to be here. The other thing is while trying to research the history of my family that would have come down from New Jersey into this area, is that I'm finding a commodification, a gentrification, and the commercialization of those poor people. And while I want to celebrate the culture of an area, and I'm gonna specifically mention Appalachia here, is that as I began to kind of see how my family crossed over Appalachia and probably maybe some of them stayed, you know, that's some that's some heavy legwork, is that their presence wouldn't have been noted in any of the the census or even on a birth or death record because they were too poor. And very often, kind of the spooky stories that you see of areas came from the fact that these people didn't want to be bothered. And if they said that there was a whistler in the woods or there was this or that, most good God-fearing Christians wouldn't step into that because there might be some kind of um you know hate or or some kind of scary thing, and they didn't want to be literally bedeviled by any negative forces that were in that area. And you see this sort of just kind of what I'm seeing now is that you know, like the poor are not here to line your pockets. Um, and if you're being lined, if your pockets are being lined on the traditions and folklore and life ways, that those that did not have enough resources to stand up and be counted, did not have enough resources to get health care, did not have enough resources to do anything other than survive, then I really feel you should put that back into that community. And maybe instead of uh sort of making light of those people, because it's funny, um, you know, the hillbillies, the indigenous, um, the and the people that came from enslaved persons, not just from Africa, but from uh Scotland and Ireland as well, and other countries, the Scandinavian countries had a lot of indentured peoples. Um, you know, where you make fun of the the farm person or the cowboy or the whatever that um somewhere in your ancestry, unless you just know for a fact that you you stepped out of the um the the first people and you had a silver spoon in your mouth from the time of humans on this earth until now. Um someone in your family line dealt with poverty. Someone in your family line did not get counted because they did not have access to the things that others did. Someone in your family line did the best that they could by graduate, you know, getting to fourth grade in school. And while they may not talk like you or act like you, believe like you, these are your people. And we just need to kind of stop and think about that a little bit. Um, because if it weren't for those people that survived, you wouldn't be here. And I think maybe we should all just take a collective deep breath and remember that the least of us are as important as the influencers of us because someone that uses the struggle of a culture to um yeah, it's a thing for me. Um, I've and honestly, I've always been this way for as long as I can remember. Um, you know, it it's something that happens when you grow up real poor, and uh, you know, as a young person and you get made fun of because you wear the same clothes, or you know, you smell like a farm because you had to go take care of the animals before you got on the school bus. And that um even if your family does move up in the economic food chain, that it doesn't really change the fact that you were, you know, you know, one way to get me to talk like I did when I was young is to let me get a little excited about talking about that, yeah, get a little sleepy, um, or you know, just sometimes I'm just like, oh, you know, I was taught how to speak proper English. Um, but in my in my heart and my soul, um, I'm a like a I'm a like a fast talking heelbilly. And I s I say things that um my ancestors would have said because that is it's in my blood, it's in my DNA. So yeah, thanks for joining me this week. I will be here next week with a topic yet to be decided. And uh yeah, that's all I got. Uh again, thanks for being here. I hope you're having a wonderful day, and uh take some time to check out your family tree.