Final Thoughts

Carol once told me that my mind "is a storehouse of useless trivia."  One example is that, for some reason, I've never forgotten my high school English teacher telling us that the Greek epic, the Iliad, is the story of one brief section of the ten year long Trojan war which doesn't include either the beginning or the end.  On a much smaller scale, the same thing could be said about this blog.  I've read that people (at least in England) began using last names during the 1300's.  If so, that means to the present day, Winder family history is about 700 years long (and counting) of which this blog covered a little over a hundred, and definitely not the beginning or the end.  Indeed it's unlikely it will ever end.

Earliest known picture of a Winder - Mary Ann Winder (Hudson) and James W. Winder about 1880

With regard to the present and the future I think, and hope, this blog has recorded and told the story of a period in our family history that could have been lost.  Now each line of Winder descendants can pick up their own family's story at the end of the immigrant generation and carry it forward.  The good news is that in almost every case there are enough people still living who can contribute to that history.  I intend to do that for my family and I encourage everyone else to do the same.

In terms of the past, my biggest regret is not being able to take the story further back.  In genealogy there's a term called a "brick wall," the obstacle that makes it impossible, with any degree of accuracy, to move past a certain point.  The brick wall in the Winder family is the uncertainty about William Winder's birth and his last name.  William claimed he was born in Gloucestershire in 1822, but there is no one on the surviving public record born in that year with that name.  The problem is that there were so many births in that period which never got on the public record so it's an obstacle that most likely will never be overcome, although I'll continue to try.  Taking the family back about 200 years is no small accomplishment, but since the Proctor line (James W. Winder's wife's family) has been traced back almost 500 years, it would be nice to get further back with the Winders.

Youngest Winder descendant - Sophie Ann Zinn in October of 2013

Some time ago I circulated a New York Times article citing a study that families that know their family history are better off than those that don't.  Best of all, according to the study, were family histories that are not a constant record of growth and good things, but those that include both ups and downs.  While in our case, the good far outweighs the bad, the Winders had their ups and downs which makes them fully human, but still a good example for all of us who have come afterwards.

Ultimately, I've come to think of the Winder story in terms of the last lines of George Eliot's great novel, Middlemarch, and there is probably no better way to end this blog:

'"for the growing good of the world is partly dependent upon unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill for you and me as they might have been, it is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."