Jaimish Patel

Brown
UWRT1101
18 November 2014
Out of our Trees
For my family tree, I chose to look at my dads side of the family and trace it up to my great
grandfathers. My family was a bit hard to track down because everyone in it is from India. So
instead, I asked my family here in America and I got quite a bit of information about all the people.
However, there were not many family disputes or problems. I first called my father, who gave me as
much information as I could find. He gave me an adequate amount of information, enough to make
the basic foundation, but then I then called my uncle, and he knew a lot more. I found out a few
interesting things about older generations just by looking at the family tree itself.
Before I get to those things, though, I would like to explain a couple cultural things. The first
thing is that Bhai was a sign of respect for men, and was tacked on to their legal names. Likewise,
ben was tacked on to womens legal names as a sign of respect. The second thing is that I realized
that generations ago, people would have kids at a very early age. My grandmother married at
fifteen, and had her first child at eighteen. To find information, I started with my father. My fathers
family comes from a little village in Gujarat, India called
Zarola. Zarola is a small village surrounded by acres of
farmland. In order to get anywhere, they would take a bus to
a main road, then get somewhere using another bus. They all
had the last name Patel, since they were all in the same
place, so no one needed to change their names.

In order to find out information about my family members, I asked my dad. He knew a lot of
names, and a few birthdays, but that is all. I tried to find an ancestry website that could assist me in
finding out about my family, but I could not find one that would trace ancestry internationally, so I
only had my dad, at that point, and what he knew off the top of his head was impressive.
Starting with the family itself, my grandfathers name was Jethabhai, and my grandmothers
name was Shardaben. My fathers name is Hitesh. His wife and my mother is named Chetna. He has
four brothers and no sisters. Their names are Vishnu, Ashok, Rasik, and Navin. Their wives,
respectively are Nita, Dhanu, Sula, and Jyoti. Rooting from my grandfathers side of the family, he
had three sisters: Sushilaben, Vimlaben, and Virbalaben. Jethabhais father was Mahijibhai, and
Mahijibhais father was Mangalbhai. They made up three generations of farmers and tobacco
merchants. The cycle broke off at my fathers generation, since all five of Jethabhais children, my
father included, moved to the US in search of a better life.
My grandmothers side was more difficult to find,
because in India, the fathers side is a little more important.
However, I was able to find some information from my
uncle. My grandmother, Shardaben, had three brothers.
Their names were Chimanbhai, Bhupendrabhai, and
Rajendrabhai. Shardabens fathers name was Mangalbhai,
and her mothers name was Laxmiba. There was a slight
problem in my findings, however. In the entirety of my
research, I could not find birthdays of anyone above my
fathers generation and my grandmother because birthdays
were not considered very important. Known birthdays are represented by the table on the right.

I would like to focus on my uncle Navin. He is a significant member of my family because not
only was he the first member of my family to come to America, but he was also the ticket to all my
other uncles and my father coming to this country. He came to this country when he was twenty
three years old with ten dollars in his pocket. He stayed at the YMCA and cleaned machines in a
factory for one dollar per hour of work. Through years of hard work and labor, he eventually
became a legal citizen and worked his way into having his own home, and bringing his brothers to
the country and helping them. He inspired me and a lot of my family to do more with what we have
considering how much he did with what he didnt have.
After finding out as much as I could about my family, I asked about any issues or disputes in
the family, and interestingly, there were none. The wives were all domestic, and the husbands all
did work on the farm. Aside from that, there was nothing much. It was a simple village surrounded
by farmland. I realized a few things through this project. The first was that the times were so much
simpler. My great great grandfather owned a farm and it was passed down through generations.
There were no issues with inheritance because it was generally passed down to all the children and
they shared it. There was no splitting, just good old fashioned sharing. This was the same way with
my father and uncles. The house in Zarola belongs to all of them. Things were simpler before there
were property laws, taxes, and contracts. This project was helpful. It taught me to not forget where
I come from in order to know where I am going. When I told my dad about this project it made him
happy.