My grandfather's memory: Alzheimer's in my family

Although I was younger when my grandfather passed away after suffering from Alzheimer's for several years, remembrances of his struggles and their impact on my family are fresh in my memory.

Alzheimer's disease and the trials it causes are always difficult for family and friends to accept, but probably more so when they affect someone as independent and intelligent as my grandfather.

Specific moments that stand out in my memory are:

• My grandfather getting into his car to drive home from the park... This was the last time I remember him driving, since shortly after this day the family realized that it was no longer safe to allow him to drive alone.
• My grandfather's walks around the neighborhood... He still found joy in a brisk walk as he always had, although with his memory beginning to fail, a family member probably had to go "find him" more than once.
• Confused sentences, questions that didn't make sense, the difficulty he had remembering my name... It was difficult for me to see my grandfather, a man of intelligence who had always encouraged me in my education, losing his grip on the world. Since I was not his caregiver, I had less exposure than others to the struggles that continued as his mind deteriorated, but many of the times that I did witness his confusion are etched in my memory clearly.
  
• The familiar smile that I remembered from my childhood... Even in the later stages of the disease, when he failed to regularly recognize loved ones, it was comforting to be greeted by my grandfather's classic, knowing smile.
  

In this Alzheimer's Awareness Month, I remember again the struggles that my family faced as our loved one continued to lose more and more of his memory and therefore his ability to function in the world.

At his passing, guests at my grandfather's funeral were asked that in lieu of flowers they make donations to the Alzheimer's Association, an organization which provides help to caregivers struggling to understand what is happening to their loved ones, and trying to determine how best to help them. If you know someone facing Alzheimer's Disease, contact the Alzheimer's Association to find helpful resources and a local support group near you.

You might also find help in the list of suggested reading materials in Brenda Parris' Bibliography of Alzheimer's and Caregiving and in poetry written by those caring for Alzheimer's patients. Younger readers may find help understanding why their loved ones are changing by reading some of the books suggested at Brenda Parris' Alzheimer's Bibliography for Children and Teenagers webpage.

This was written for the 60th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. Please visit Creative Gene for more articles and personal stories about Alzheimer's Disease and its impact.

From "hard knocks" to Harvard

A station agent for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, George William McCue was only 37 years old when he passed away (cause yet unknown to me) in 1923. His wife Margaret, age 36, was left to support herself and her five young children. The children, two boys and three girls ages four to ten years old, must have found it hard to understand the sudden loss of their father.

The eldest, George Roger McCue, was now the "man of the family" at age ten. I grew up hearing stories of how he helped to support his family at a very young age. I don't remember too many of the details, but delivering newspapers may have been one of the jobs that he took on to help support his family in their time of need.

At the time of George W. McCue's death, the family was living in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Soon thereafter, Margaret moved herself and her children back home to live with her mother and sister in Quincy, where they remained for the rest of their childhoods. Census and other records show this family of women breadwinners working hard to make a living. Their resourcefulness and support for eachother surely got them through the trying years of the Great Depression. Margaret sometimes worked as a bookkeeper, a job that she had held before her marriage to George. Her sister Betty worked as a seamstress. Their mother, Catherine, may have performed many of the household tasks and also helped with the children.

When I asked George Roger McCue about his ancestors many years ago, he didn't remember the names of his grandfathers or his other grandmother, but his grandmother Catherine Tierney's name was still very much present in his memory. Growing up within the same household as their grandmother and Aunt Betty, the children must have felt like they had three mothers.

George, the young breadwinner helping to earn money for his family, went on to be the first of the McCues and Tierneys to attend college. The grandson of an Irish famine survivor who had immigrated to America, George went on to earn a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University, class of 1936. Over the course of many years, he had a successful career in marketing and management for the W.T. Grant Company, a retail department store chain, retiring from the company as regional manager.

George Roger McCue

(Photograph privately held by the author)

I often wonder how the loss of George's father at such as young age and the hard work he performed to help support his family might have helped to shape his character and work ethic. It is amazing how the childhoods of one generation of a family can be such a stark contrast to those of even the very next generation.

My hope is that the descendants of George William and Margaret McCue will take the time to look back and remember the struggles of their forebears, and be reminded of the true joy of the blessed essentials of our lives that we so often take for granted today.

Where science meets family history

Have you read about genetics in the news? Ever asked yourself, "How does this apply to me?"

The study of genetics and DNA testing in particular has now become not just a newsworthy topic, but a practical and meaningful tool for personal use. Family historians, in particular, stand to benefit greatly from the use of DNA testing.

Now a simple cheek swab test can be used to provide information that can confirm previous family history research or provide new clues to a family's heritage, both familial and geographical. On the flip side, genealogy is aiding the study of genetics by providing an avenue for further study of current findings.

If you are interested in getting an introduction to DNA testing and genetics and how they apply to genealogy and perhaps your own family history, check out the Carnival of Genealogy: 35th Edition. Hosted by Blaine Bettinger, otherwise known as the Genetic Genealogist, this "blog carnival" is a series of articles posted on various blogs about the topic of genetics and genealogy.

Included in the series of carnival posts are my own entries:

• Mr. Tierney, I presume? here at A Light That Shines Again (just before this post)
• A rose by any other name at 100 Years in America
• Bad genes - discovered! at Small-leaved Shamrock

Also check out:

• Calling all Ó Cobhthaigh, Cowhey, Coffey cousins! posted at Small-leaved Shamrock

Happy reading! As I learn more about DNA testing and its application to the Tierney family's heritage and that of other related families, I will post more information.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy a little introduction to genetic genealogy thanks to the 35th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy.

Mr. Tierney, I presume?

It's hard to imagine a world where surnames were not a part of everyday life. Today we rely on last names to identify ourselves and easily refer to others. But when you look at the full span of history, it was not that long ago that surnames came into use. And, interestingly enough, the Irish were probably one of the first to use them.

According to researchers Brian McEvoy and Daniel Bradley at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at Trinity College in Dublin:

"Ireland has one of the oldest systems of patrilineal hereditary surnames in the world. While paternally inherited hereditary surnames are the norm right across Europe, early medieval Ireland was probably the first culture to adopt their usage, with some appearing in the early 10th century AD."

I've been working on my family's history since I was an adolescent, and I intend to continue for many more years. Chances are, however, that I'll probably not be able to work back in my family tree to anywhere near the 10th century. (I was thrilled a year or so ago to finally trace the Tierney family back to the time of the Great Famine in the mid-nineteenth century.)

Enter genetic genealogy. No, DNA won't give me the joy that I've received when I've found a photo of an ancestor, or discovered an ancestor's previously unknown given name on a document, but it can provide information about deeper family heritage in ways that were not possible just short years ago.

According to an article on Genetics & Genealogy by By Thomas H. Roderick, PhD of the Center for Human Genetics:

"By adding DNA analysis to our armamentarium of genealogical tools, we...are adding a new approach that can verify or deny established genealogical lines, provide through similar DNA findings hypotheses for where and when lines may be related and thus new areas in location and time to use the standard genealogical tools, provide understandings of relationships prior to the historical record and to provide insights into our Y-line [patrilineal] and M line [matrilineal] ethnic heritage."

The Y-line that Roderick mentioned is the family tree of the father of the father of the father...and so on. This is also referred to as patrilineal DNA. It turns out that each male has a Y chromosome identical to that of his father, and his father's father, and his father's father's father, back through all ancestral generations on what is called the "Y line".

A simple cheek swab test can provide information about your patrilineal family tree many generations back, particularly with regard to where the family originated. It can also provide you with connections to other descendants of the same family line that are living today - distant cousins who share the same heritage. This information can be shared with others through a Y-DNA surname project.

Because of the nature of patrilineal genetics, you must be male to test Y-line DNA. (The other type of frequently used DNA test is matrilineal or mitochondrial DNA, otherwise known as mtDNA. For more information see the Ireland Heritage mtDNA project.)

Take a look at the frequently asked questions section (under the For Newbies tab on the left sidebar) on the International Society of Genetic Genealogy website for more information about how DNA testing works and what information it can provide.

If your name is Mr. Tierney, and you are interested in learning more about your family's genetic heritage, you may be interested in the Tierney Surname Y-DNA Project. For more information, go to the Tierney Clans Society website or access the project directly at Family Tree DNA .

Similar projects are available for other Irish surnames (not to mention surnames of other backgrounds). You can find more information on some Irish surname projects at Irish Heritage DNA Project and the Ireland Heritage Y-DNA Project Family Tree DNA, although the list is by no means exhaustive. (Tierney and Kennedy, for example, surnames for which I know that there are projects available, are not listed on Irish Heritage.)

It's exciting to be researching family history now that technology is aiding us in so many amazing ways, including the area of genetics. Genealogy has never been as easy or as rewarding.

This post was created as part of the Carnival of Genealogy on genetics. See The Genetic Genealogist for more entries and information about genetic genealogy.