ACES and Genealogy

Originally published in genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 22 Jan 2016.

Went to a training today on Cyberbullying and students’ ACE Scores were mentioned.  It got me thinking of what some of my ancestors’ scores would be!

ACE stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences.  There’s a phenomenal TED MED talk about how the effects of childhood trauma resonate well into adulthood, effecting not only mental, but also physical health.  You can view the video of speaker Nadine Burke Harris here.

I decided this weekend, since it’s going to be cooooold and wet, that I would stay inside and keep the ACE test in mind as I look at my tree by working backwards.  By that, I mean I’ll look at cause of death and then investigate the individual’s early life.  Anyone dying of heart disease, lung cancer, or diabetes may have had a high ACE score.  Was it a one parent household?  Was the parent an alcoholic?  I can check that by looking at some of the newspaper articles that I’ve found and poking around some more for those that I don’t have much info.  I won’t be able to fill in many of the other ACE questions but the results of this little experiment may prove interesting.  If you’d like to obtain an ACE Score or learning more about it check out this website.  Make sure, if you go to the site you scroll down to obtain a Resilience Score as that’s important, too!

Personally, I think genealogy is a lesson in resiliency.  Whenever things are tough I know my ancestors had it a whole lot worse than I do.  I’m thankful to live in this day and age, even with all the stressors we face and most of all, I’m really thankful that my ancestors had the resiliency to carry on under adversity. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here!