Desperately Seeking Heroes From Our Past…In Time For Father’s Day

It’s no secret that superhero movies are the most popular and biggest-grossing films, and the reason is also pretty obvious. Everyone loves to see somebody fighting the good fight, never giving up in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, and in the end, triumphing over the forces of evil. Because if they can do it, maybe we can too.

What’s not so obvious is the way our fascination with heroes plays into our desire to learn more about our own ancestry.

But it really does make sense: If it’s inspiring to watch a hero doing heroic things, how much more so if that hero were actually our own ancestor! What a thrill if we can find someone with the same blood as ours flowing through his or her veins who did something really special, maybe even noble, something that stood out, something that made the people of that time sit up and take notice.

Not surprisingly, one of the ancestry search companies has launched a promotion in time for Father’s Day. (Not sure why they didn’t do the same for Mother’s Day.) What better gift for Dad (or Mom) than a tool to learn about someone in our heritage that did something special?

I’m not sure whether there were any superheroes in my family tree. Despite the increasing availability of services like this, most of us don’t really know much about the people in our bloodlines who came before us. I know I don’t. But I think I can make a pretty good guess about a few things:

• They came over here because things weren’t going so well for them back there, and they hoped they could do better.
• They faced difficult barriers — language, cultural, religious and economic — in attaining their goal of making a decent life for themselves and their families.
• While there were some successes and some failures, they tried their best under difficult circumstances.

And maybe that’s inspiration enough.