Why do we care to know where we come from?

Throughout most of my life I have been obsessed with knowing where I came from….or where my families came from. I don’t know if that’s the result of growing up in a broken home where the family that I actively lived with shared many stories of how their families came to be. I knew that on my dad’s side I was German and Austrian….so basically Prussian. That is all I knew. Most of what I didn’t know as a child I made up in my head to have stories to tell. Once my dad was back in my life at 8 I wanted to know more but I was paralyzingly shy and afraid of asking anything about anything and if it related to his family I was deathly fearful of rejection.

Once I moved out on my own and discovered Ancestry’s family tree builder and all of that I began researching to find out where I came from. Around 2001 I got this ominous email saying that my grandparents knew what I was doing and if I didn’t stop they would continue to have nothing to do with me and to stop doing the family tree ASAP. At that time I was 20 years old and had only met my grandparents once as an INFANT. Why in the hell did anyone think they had any right to tell me to stop what I was doing that was not harming anyone.

Fast forward four years and I finally met my grandparents again as an adult. And we stayed in touch for the next 9 years until she found out I had reached back out and reconnected with my father. Then she dumped me completely.

So anyways, over the last 8 years I have really put a lot of time, effort, and money into building my husband’s family tree and my own. And I can not find anything about my grandmother. I can’t find the name of her parents. I know she has a sister. My aunt who is in touch with her doesn’t have any idea about her family. My grandmother will NOT discuss her family with ANYONE. I know there’s a story there. After my father did his DNA around Thanksgiving we found that he is primarily Eastern European; Czech, Slovak, Polish, & Lithuanian. The 4 people we’ve found on Ancestry DNA that are related to her are all of those also with European Jewish also. So something happened somewhere.

I just wish I knew why I’m so obsessed with this.

Why am I always looking for a hole to fill?