When showing people photos of my sisters, a common response is “I can tell you’re related”.<\/p>\n
Quite frankly, my sisters and I see only the vaguest resemblance to each other, but perhaps we’re looking too closely.<\/p>\n
Among our relatives, I’ve noticed instances\u00c2\u00a0where family members share physical attributes very closely. My cousin Jim looks\u00c2\u00a0very much\u00c2\u00a0like his father. My own father and his brother Joe look so much alike that there can be no doubt they are brothers.<\/p>\n
In my family, my younger sister and I look more like each other than either of us look like our older sister. We both have blond hair that has darkened with age and a nose that we surely inherited from our paternal grandmother. We also share what my sister refers to as “Spock eyebrows” and I lovingly call “mad scientist eyebrows” that we must have inherited from our Niedzialkowski ancestors. Sure enough, a photograph of me with my three\u00c2\u00a0Niedzialkowski uncles shows that\u00c2\u00a0the four of us have the same eyebrows.<\/p>\n
My older sister inherited her hair color, eye color, and nose from our mother. More than that, she inherited our mother’s predisposition for organization and orderliness.<\/p>\n
While growing up, our family’s house was always clean and neat, with the possible exception of my bedroom which, after a certain point in time, my mother declared a disaster zone. My older sister’s house is likewise neat and clean, except after the grandkids have been to visit. We won’t even discuss the office in my home.<\/p>\n
My older sister is calm, flexible, and friendly. She will go out of her way to help others and, for many years, was the primary caregiver for our Aunt Helen. She probably inherited those traits from my father who knows half the people in town and, at the drop of a hat,\u00a0will strike up a conversation with complete strangers. My younger sister and I are a bit more tightly wound,\u00a0but we’ve mellowed with age.<\/p>\n
The one behavioral tendency that I’ve seen in many family members is an attention to detail. Certainly, my parents, my sisters and I all share an attention to detail, a trait that proves useful in researching family history. Even beyond my immediate family, many of my uncles, aunts, and cousins also share this trait. I don’t know if\u00c2\u00a0this attention to detail\u00c2\u00a0is inherited or if it’s a learned behavior, but it’s the one trait I’ve clearly noticed\u00c2\u00a0is common among\u00c2\u00a0my\u00c2\u00a0relatives.<\/p>\n
Written for the Carnival of Genealogy.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2008\u00c2\u00a0Stephen J. Danko<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When showing people photos of my sisters, a common response is “I can tell you’re related”. Continue reading