A few years ago I had a DNA test from ancestry. com and then I joined their subscription service. There were many surprises, more than I was expecting. They are not always immediately apparent. You need to look at the data, look at other people’s trees, track comments and stories. Even when you suspect something in advance, when it arrives it can still be a shock. Knowledge can be like death in that way. When a terminally-ill patient dies, the death can still feel unexpected. With knowledge, it is your comfortable view of the world that dies, and in rare instances, your uncomfortable view.

This week I lost a little bit of discomfort.

As a child, I was raised mostly by my maternal grandparents, a fact that embarassed me back then, and up to the present day. As an adult, I still wondered, Was I an imposition? Were they ready for retirement, and then had to take care of a child? Did others in the family see me as a charity case?

This week, looking at Census records from 1920, I discovered that my maternal grandfather had been living with his grandmother, Hannah Browner, and her sister at a residence in Paris, Kentucky. He had been fourteen years old. No man was registered. Beside my grandfather’s name in the log was written “grandson.” For that residence, there were also two borders put down on the Census list.

My grandmother and her sister both raised me, though in different homes. I had something in common with my grandfather that I hadn’t realized, something that changes how I interpret my position in the family.

He never told me about his childhood, though there was a lot to tell. His mother married three times, possibly four. He spent his adulthood estranged from his half-sister. I have always believed that anger was the unexpressed emotion in my mother’s side of the family, but now I’m wondering if it’s actually pain. I saw my grandfather angry, and afraid, but I never saw him cry. I never heard stories of any vulnerability, or of delicate emotions. People will say it was a different time, and men were expected to stay a rigid course. All true, to varying extents, but the cultural differences of the time shouldn’t help us ignore what wasn’t expressed, or its impact on others.

For decades I used to fill out my Census forms, considering the Census as a dry, fact-finding mission, but now I realize how important it is for more than funding allocation.