Posts Tagged ‘comparing generations’
Just Learned
After a lifetime of identifying as a tail-end Baby Boomer, I have recently discovered that I am a member of Generation Jones, a distinction coined by an American cultural commentator in 1999. Consisting of people born between the years 1954-1965, the issues we faced during our coming-of-age years were different from our older Boomer siblings. I certainly recognize the characteristics of pessimism and cynicism in my young self that are generally attributed to Jonesers.
I remember being told in a class in high school during the energy crisis years in the ‘70s that it was unlikely we would ever live in single-family homes by the time we would be having kids of our own. The use of DDT had made bald eagles nearly extinct. We were burning a hole in the Earth’s ozone layer. The Watergate scandal led to the US President’s resignation. Classic rock music was getting squished by disco and punk. It was all rather depressing.
When Cyndie and I started dating, I held the mindset of not wanting to bring children into the messed-up world. In reality, we did buy single-family homes, I landed a good job, we raised two wonderful children, and thankfully, their development helped me to discover the need to seek treatment for depression.
While reading about Generation Jones, I saw this tidbit that made me chuckle: What does Elvis mean to these three generations? Boomers > King; Jonesers > fat; Gen Xrs > Costello.
My Boomer siblings remember when phone numbers started with letters. When I was starting high school, we had a second phone line exclusively for teen use. Boomers watched the “Mickey Mouse Club” on TV in black and white. I watched “The Banana Splits” or “The Monkees” in color.
The distinction makes sense to me. The span of time originally associated with the Baby Boom generation was too long. Things changed so fast, we Jonesers grew up in a different world compared to the main Boomers.
It’s all a far cry from life today. Cyndie and I are currently navigating the complications of avoiding driving on the fresh sealcoat on our driveway for a couple of days by parking in the back yard and driving through the back pasture and the hay field to get to the road.
While Cyndie was closing gates after I had driven her car through, she took a picture of Mia coming over to see what the heck we were up to.
When I made the second pass of cutting all the overgrown lawn areas a few days ago, I left out the labyrinth. Not only does the grass need cutting in there again, but the bushes are in dire need of a visit from the hedge trimmer.
I wonder how much of my drive to have our landscape look well-kempt aligns with the traits of being in Generation Jones, or if it’s more a carryover Boomer trait.
I’ve learned enough things in my life to sense that there are likely as many similarities between the two generations as there are differences.
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Comparing Generations
In my random occasions dabbling with research into my family ancestry, I’ve too often limited my focus to a narrow few surnames at the expense of so many others. The case of not finding any evidence of a person I’m seeking should be enough to push me on to other lines of the family, but sometimes I can’t get myself to give up.
Something that has helped me to appreciate how many people’s blood we share is the display of doubling numbers for each generation above us in our family trees.
- 2 parents
- 4 grandparents
- 8 great grandparents
- 16 great-great grandparents
- 32 great-great-great grandparents
- 64 great-great-great-great grandparents
I’ve got names for all 16 great-great grandparents, but only 25 of 32 third-great grandparents.
It can get confusing sometimes to keep track of generations and relationships, especially when parent and children names can be the same or very similar. Since I was listing out the generations, I decided to make note of the range of birth years for each.
It’s interesting to see how much the range of years increases with each generation, but understandable with the increased number of people involved.
Cyndie and I can serve as an example of how the difference of birth year can be so great within a familial generation. There is a 17-year difference in the birth years of our parents. Cyndie was the first-born child of 20-year-old parents and I was the fifth-born child of 40-year-old parents.
The birth date ranges of my ancestors shows that one of my 3rd-great grandparents was born after one of my 2nd-great grandparents. No wonder I can get confused sometimes about who is who and in which generation they belong.
It’s a mind boggling trip to contemplate being equal parts of 32 or 64 people in a generation.
It would be a shame to neglect any one part of our history when looking at the rest. My next priority on the genealogy puzzle is to identify those seven missing 3rd-great grandparents. From the looks of it, Ancestry.com has hints waiting to be investigated on several of them.
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Relative Something 