To the Editor:

The year had just turned 2000.  I was a 29 year-old graduate student who along with everyone else at that time had just survived the Y2K hysteria. It was still a year and a half away to 9/11, when along with my colleagues I would watch the Twin Towers collapse from my vantage point down Sixth Avenue, forever changing our political landscape.

 But 2000…that was still a good year.  And something happened that year which would alter and inform my future self.

 I decided to take the train ride from my flat in Stirling down to Preston, Lancashire in Northwest England.  It was here, after checking into my B&B, that I discovered the Preston Public Records Office.  Upon entering inside for my very first day of research, I was surprised to immediately spot a large framed Middle Ages era map of Lancashire and the surrounding area adorning their wall.  One particular dotted town on this map seemed to stare directly back at me…almost daring me.

 “Farnworth”. 

 The “s” was one of several derivations later added onto what would eventually become my surname.

 Long before genetic profiling companies such as 23andMe ever entered the vernacular, I decided to go old school detective.  What I learned then was an invaluable lesson on who I was and where I come from.  I was able to trace direct lineage from my father’s grandfather to the year 1641 in what is now modern day New Hampshire, from a Lord Farnsworth (yep…actually descended from British royalty) and from there, to the year 1185 in the aforementioned Town of Farnworth. 

 Turns out that I come from a long line of Glass Blowers, a profession that was at the time considered prestigious and highly sought after. 

 I also discovered that I had relatives who fought on both sides against one another during the American Revolutionary War. 

 Farnworth itself is actually quite rural, even still today. It reminded me very much so of the North Country where I had grown up, as I stared down the local bridge in Preston into the River Ribble rapidly streaming underneath below…not unlike the Grasse River after the Spring melt.

Before returning back to Stirling, I decided to repeat this exercise again by taking the train to Breconshire, Wales where my Mom’s family is from.  There I learned that my Mom’s grandparents were a coal mining family before emigrating to Central Pennsylvania, where they continued their trade.

 We are all products of our own history.  This summer, rather than lamenting on someone else and their “problems” which you actually have no control over, I would like to issue a challenge to  consider undergoing your own personal discovery.  It is time and money well spent, and it will gift to you forever what is sorely deficient in today’s modernity. 

“Perspective”.

 Leland Farnsworth

Massena