The Present is the Key to the Past

One of the basic tenets of geological studies is that “the present is the key to the past.” The concept was originated by James Hutton, the “father” of geology, in 1795, in his explanation of landforms. He believed the Earth was much older than the commonly accepted biblical notion of a few thousand years and that we could learn more about its history and formation by investigating and measuring the rate of changes to the landscape currently taking place. 

Uniformitarianism, as it came to be known, was popularized by Sir Charles Lyell in 1830, in his treatise, Principles of Geology. He emphasized that essentially the same uniform and continuous processes are operating today to shape the Earth that have always existed, and that will continue to exist. We can learn a great deal about what we see in the geologic record by studying how the Earth is currently being modified.

Historians generally accept and advise that knowledge of the past is important in understanding the present and looking into the future. In his important work, The Life of Reason, George Santayana noted philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist, wrote that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That’s fine in dealing with human activities for which there have been written records, but not much help in unravelling natural conditions for which humans were not involved or responsible.

For example, if we want to know how ancient strata was formed by fluvial systems we can look at how modern rivers carry and deposit sediment and what vertical and lateral relationships the beds have with each other.

If we want to know more about ancient volcanic eruptions, from tens of thousands or millions of years ago, we can examine volcanoes active today and see how they form and develop. That was true when Krakatau erupted in 1883. Major studies were made at the time and for years after in order to build a record of that singular eruption. Recently-installed communication networks had allowed the world to learn about the event almost as it occurred. The data collected was then used to interpret what the results might have been when similar eruptions took place many thousands of years ago, and what the effects they made have had around the world.

The concept has been expanded to include short-term events like weather-related storms and floods, and how they impact communities.

If we want to be able to comprehend how peoples’ lives might have been changed by natural catastrophes from storm or flood damage in ancient times, we might only have to review the results documented in modern-day newspapers or the TV news for more recent disasters.

The idea can also be applied to interpreting how natural phenomena affected political and social systems, in addition to physical environments.

If we want to understand how famines came about and how people responded to, or were impacted by them in centuries past, we need only to look at the history of famines in more recent times. The 1877-79 famine that resulted from a major El Nino, recounted in many books, articles and even pictures, illustrate for us what could have transpired during the Great Famine of the early 14^th century, at the beginning of the Little Ice Age.

The desperation of people confronted by disasters, whether created by Mother Nature or humans, leave a lasting mark on those who experienced the events and may also have significantly affected succeeding generations. The further back in history such occasions happened, the fewer records will exist to describe the physical and, especially, emotional impacts.

Few public reports such as newspapers exist from before the 18^th century, but we can get glimpses into the hardships endured from notes recorded in parish registers or through correspondence of those who witnessed the incidents. From those records we might be able to compare those observations with more comprehensive descriptions from more recent events and gain a clearer picture of their effects.

Genealogists, in particular, tend to delve into the past to unravel our family story and thereby gain some insight as to how we got here. But the past has limited resources to allow us to assemble a complete narrative, certainly in terms of how natural events played a role in our ancestors’ lives. In terms of the environment in which people lived, we can perhaps get a bit more insight into how people faired if we look at more recent examples that will be described in much more detail.

Look to the present as a key to the past!

New Found Family: A DNA, Ancestry, Facebook success story

The following story was sent to me by a friend who thought Discover Genealogy readers would be interested in a happy and successful discovery of new family members, at least new to each other. I agreed, so I am pleased to present it here. Never underestimate the possibility of chance meetings, in person or online.

New Found Family: A DNA, Ancestry, Facebook success story

Guest Post by Janet Matiisen

My friends, I have got a story to tell you. 

This goes on for a bit. Apparently, I’ve decided to write a novella.

My family is a small, tight group. My sister, Melanie, and I are the best of friends; our parents, Arne and Carolyn, are loving and amazing. Mel’s husband, Loren, is the best man I know and their daughters, Arabelle and Lucia, are shining lights in my life. Our aunt Eda (Dad’s sister) has been a terrific influence and force in our lives. We have wonderful family on my Mom’s side as well: Uncle Grant and Aunt Carolyne, and their sons (and their families), Mike and Kara, Brad and Meredith, and Mitch and Angela. We are blessed to have such a small and vibrant family unit.

Dad was the middle of three kids, Eda is his younger sister, and Hendo was his older brother, each born four years apart in Estonia. The Matiisen family story could be made in to a movie – fleeing Estonia in the early stages of the WWII to Sweden, and eventually settling in central Alberta, near Eckville. There are a handful of Estonian settlements in Alberta, most prominently near Eckville and Stettler.

Dad’s brother, Hendo, passed away in Edmonton in 1987. He had never married. Neither he nor Eda had children, so we have no Matiisen cousins (we thought). Mel and I are two of the Last of our Matiisen line.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, around 11:00 pm, when I noticed a Facebook message from an unknown person. Having a curious nature, I opened it up and started reading. My eyes just about popped out of my head.

“Hello, my name is Michael K...... I’ve found you by way of Ancestry.com, and then through Facebook. In what must seem like an odd message from out of nowhere, it would seem that we’re related...”

Wait! What now?

He went on, “... it was not until I was in my 20’s that I was told by my mother that my father was a man named Hendo Matiisen, an engineer with whom she had had a brief relationship in the summer of 1967 in Fort McMurray... Apparently, my mother never communicated her pregnancy or my existence to Mr. Matiisen – they immediately lost touch, as she returned to her life as a nursing student in Red Deer, having only been in Fort McMurray on a road trip with a friend. I was born on April 9th in Red Deer.”

Again, what now?

“I’ve never quite known what to do with the information about Mr. Matiisen, particularly while my mother and step-father were alive. They both passed away in 2009 and 2014, respectively. More than this, I’ve never quite known if the information was true. A few months ago, for fun, my wife and I decided to join Ancestry.com along with her parents who were interested in their DNA story. Last month, I checked my results, which, with ‘extremely high confidence’ predicts my relationship to ‘A.M. (managed by Carolyn Matiisen)’ as ‘close family’.”

The message continued on very respectfully and I was quite sure this wasn’t some Nigerian prince looking to unload several million dollars if I would just forward him my banking information. 

I started frantically texting Melanie, in all caps, “ARE YOU AWAKE WE HAVE TO TALK HOLY CRAP YOU HAVE TO BE UP.” No immediate response. “WAKE UP AND TALK TO ME WE HAVE TO TALK RIGHT NOW.” I copy/pasted Michael’s message to her in text form, and she did finally (maybe all of six minutes later) respond. We had simultaneous meltdowns. She’d deleted the message from him without reading it, assuming it was, in fact, a Nigerian prince scam. 

The message seemed legit; this guy seemed really normal. It was well written and grammatically correct, the dates all lined up, and holy s--t! Now what?

We decided to invite Mom over to Mel’s for spontaneous coffee the next day and show her the message. We would also try to get Eda on the phone at the same time. The next couple of days were crazy. Mom reacted in shock, as did we all, but moved on quickly from shock to excitement. We didn’t contact Eda by phone right then, but Mel talked to her shortly afterwards. We didn’t want to respond to Michael without having all of the family in the know and had a chance to collect our thoughts. 

We responded a couple of days later, and that started an avalanche of correspondence. We have a Matiisen cousin!

Fast forward again. Michael said that he and his wife Kathy (they live in Tucson, Arizona) would be in Abbotsford, BC, for a couple of weeks visiting Kathy’s parents, and maybe they could come to Calgary while in Canada. 

“OF COURSE WE WANT TO MEET YOU!” we answered.

For the last couple of days, as I write this, they’ve been here and we’ve gotten to know each other. Michael and Kathy are so, so lovely. We also got to meet Michael's sister, Jennifer, who, as it turns out, lives in Calgary, too! Our hearts are full; our lives are enriched; our family has grown; and we are all so grateful to have discovered each other. We each have said over and over that we wish it hadn’t taken this long to meet each other, but we’re so happy that we have come together. 

And here are a few pictures of our very happy family reunion. We can’t stop smiling!

Janet, Michael & Melanie

Eda, Michael & Arne

Lunch at River Cafe - Carolyn, Kathy, Arne, Janet, Michael, Eda

A new and expanded family: Janet, Lenore, Eda, Jennifer, Kathy, Michael, MNelanie, Arabelle, Carolyn, Arne, Loren, Lucia

Natural Disasters and Family Misfortunes 15: Heat Waves

We have had some very warm days, right across the Northern Hemisphere, this past week. Not just unpleasant in many areas, but deadly!

Along with the news reports, of course, come the claims that it has never been this hot or this is a sign of the impending doom of climate change.

Unfortunately, or perhaps what is more normal, people have short memories and journalists fail in their fact-checking and due diligence – or perhaps news outlets just like to exaggerate and scare people.

A very quick search of the Internet for “historic heat waves” comes up with over 600,000 hits. In looking through many of the old reports one realizes there were many times when people suffered from exceptionally hot days. (Next winter I will probably find similar reports of the opposite case, when reports come out that it has never been colder.)

Real, accurate and consistent temperature readings in most of the world do not go back more that a few of centuries. It is impossible to gauge the severity of heat waves that occurred prior to the 19^th century with any reliability.

But it is easy to find report of heat waves that occurred during the last two centuries. I found a great webpage that details many heat waves in North America and Europe at Wanstead Mateo, “a blog about weather that affects Wanstead and the surrounding areas of east London and west Essex…” On the 26 June 2015 post there are a number of specific examples described along with a table that list the worst heat waves that affected London, England, since 1852.

There are dozens of other website that cover heat waves in North America and other parts of the world.

One major event happened in July 1757, during apparently the second hottest summer in Europe in over 500 years to that point. What is interesting about this one is that it occurred during the depth of the Little Ice Age.

The worst heat wave on record was in 2003, accompanied by very high humidity levels, which apparently killed 70,000 people in Europe.

The conclusion is that these weather anomalies are not unique to the 21^st century, nor to any time period, actually. During the 20^th century they happened at least once a decade with temperatures soaring past 90°F (32°C) or even 100° (38°C) for days on end. Deaths were common from hyperthermia, in recent decades more deadly than floods or hurricanes in North America.

As we search old records further will we find that some of our ancestors also suffered during prolonged heat waves, perhaps during many of the droughts and famines that were common in the 13^th to 19^th centuries?