Ipseity. Noun. Individual Identity.

I was first introduced to genealogy back in the seventh grade when we had to make a family pedigree for science class. I found it rather boring. Because I am an only child with several other only children up the immediate line, my family tree looked rather sparse compared to everyone else’s, with nothing overtly exciting going on. I also didn’t have much interest in my own family, as I hated being an only child, hated being the only one I knew with no living grandparents, and had some pretty rocky relations with my parents off and on. To top it all off, I resented my New Orleans roots, as they were just yet another attribute that screamed, “I’m different!” and so I shunned that part of my background a great deal.

In my spare time, I attempted to re-do the pedigree assignment on a group of characters I’d created and would dictate stories about. It was a large, blended family that, in retrospect, was somewhat akin to the Brady Bunch, with the lead character named after my celebrity crush, Mike O’Malley. The female lead was named Moira Quirk, after his sidekick on Nickelodeon GUTS (Do… do… do you have it?! 🙂 #1990sKids)

This indifferent attitude towards family history continued through high school. I explored the cultures of the Irish, the Australians, and the Canadian Cree, all because whichever (“C” or “D” list) celebrity I was into at the time bore some such extraction.

Along the way, I developed a strong affinity for Irish music, and was at one point told by several (now ex) friends how I had to make it across the pond to Ireland as it was “very much a part of me.”

Little did I know that my college experience would soon lead to what was really a part of me, and not in the way one would expect.