You can tell on reading this book from the tone of author, Jim Ruth, that he is very proud of his family lineage, and rightly so. From the first voyage that brought the Ruths to America from mainland Europe to the present day, Ruth has been able to chart from many diverse sources, a history of his family which transposes well into a book for others, who are not of the Ruth clan, to read and enjoy.
In terms of delves into family history, it is a treasure trove.
It all starts with Peter in the 1700s and his hopes for a new life. Ruth is keen to emphasise the trials of Peter’s journey: its arduous nature, its survival rate, its logistics. It was no small undertaking, filled with many uncertainties, but the prospect of something better provided Peter and others with the strength of spirit to continue. And there are lots of stories like Peter’s in this book, of the paterfamilias looking beyond where his family live and what they have and looking to the horizon for whatever new land, new people and inevitably, new challenges can offer.
Of course, there are tragedies as well as successes and the linear nature of Ruth’s exploration of his ancestry means that we see the part that Ruth’s family play in crucial events in America’s history, through revolution to independence and from there to civil war, and wars on other shores.
Sources are cited and some of the best moments are when we hear the voices of the people themselves in their own words. There is no substitute for this as this is real history: his-story as it is, not dressed up or presented in a certain way but raw and unmanufactured. I always think that family history books are incomplete without pictures and Ruth provides portraits from yesteryear, along with art, maps and quoted material to provide vision and context.
This is an interesting book in many ways. As a personal delve, the ancestors revealed are varied and because of the associations with the author, they feel more real and their stories more tangible. America’s history as a nation built from the backbone of European immigrants is here and as an avenue into discovering lineage, it is invaluable as it provides places to look for sources in its delivery of a potted history of a family’s troubles, fears, triumphs and losses.
This review was first published on Reedsy Discovery where I was privileged to read it as an ARC.
Scuffed Granny 