Lately, I’ve been deep-diving into genealogy.

It all started when I joked with some friends that I must’ve drowned in a previous life because I really don’t like water. I nearly drowned as a child, not once, but twice. I was also terrified of car washes as a kid and still hate riding through them. The water pouring down the windshield takes my breath away. I couldn’t stand playing the water levels on Super Mario because I couldn’t breathe. I have bad dreams of being underwater or on a boat, and I avoid the beach as much as possible. And with all that… water pops up in my writing often.

In “The Secrets of Shadywoods,” Maggie and Darlene have adventures at the campground lake. Maggie even has a scary experience where she almost drowns, but was saved by a neighbor’s dog. (Something similar happened to me!)

“Varlandria” and my work-in-progress, “Drascandar,” are set in oceanside villages. “Drascandar” is an island, and I’m writing all kinds of water scenes- some of them fun, some of them frightening.

“Varlandria,” “Drascandar,” and all the future books in my “Realms of the Brekenlight” series feature a number of strong female characters. The protagonist, Fenn, is in line to inherit the Varlandrian throne someday, just like her mother, and her mother before her. She comes from a long line of powerful queens.

So… that’s what got me thinking about my genealogy, especially the strong women in my heritage. Add that curiosity to my (joking?) theory of past-life drowning, and I was sent on a deep-dive to find out if any of my female ancestors had a history with water in some way.

My twenty-two year old son did a genealogy project in fifth grade. He and I worked together to create a large family tree display. We found what we could online. Not much history at that time, but simply a long list of names with birth and death dates. Some of our lineage was traced back to the 1300’s! It was truly amazing to see.

I saved that rolled-up, taped-together scroll of a family tree, so I dug it out last week and chose a branch at random. It was my paternal grandmother’s mother’s line, which dated back to 1600 in Germany.

Figuring there’d be more information now online than simple dates, I began entering names from Grandmama’s mother’s people. When I reached my fifth-great grandmother, Eva Catharina Gilbert Utz (1727-1766), my fingers began to shake over the keys of my laptop.

Eva died en route from Germany to America on a ship called the Belfast Packet in 1766. She was buried at sea. My fifth-great grandmother had been traveling across the Atlantic with her young children to the port in Charleston. She would be meeting her husband, Dietrich, (my fifth-great grandfather) who had departed a few days earlier on a different ship, and they would be moving to a large parcel of land in South Carolina. There’s a great deal of history behind this move of German and Irish immigrants to America that I won’t get into here, but Eva and her family were making the journey in hopes of a better life.

It’s difficult to describe how I felt reading about her. It was a warm tingling in my head- a knowing. As I learned more about her, I was struck by her courage and saddened for her children, the oldest of which was my fourth-great grandfather, Peter, age eight. Her four-year-old daughter, Maria, was also traveling with her on the ship.

Eva had recently given birth to a son, Michel, seven months before their journey. He wasn’t listed on the passenger list, but children under two years of age were often not listed. Most likely, he was with his mother and siblings on the ship.

She and Dietrich had twin daughters, who died as babies years earlier. They also had a three-year-old son, Johann, but from what I could tell, he had passed away before the journey. There was no direct mention of that, no death date or location, so I’m not sure about his fate.

Eva’s husband, Dietrich, arrived safely in Charleston. He remarried a month later to a young woman that was most likely a friend of the family from Germany. I found a listing that mentioned they raised Dietrich’s three children and went on to have children of their own.

This week, I’ve been consumed with curiosity about my 5xgreat grandmother. I imagine it took tremendous courage to travel with her young children across the Atlantic Ocean. Her children had to have that courage as well, especially after losing their mother on the journey. I wonder what happened. Why was she traveling on a different ship than that of her husband? How did she die? Who took care of Peter, Maria, and baby Michel on the ship until they arrived on October 15, 1766?

I’ll keep researching Eva because I want to know more about her. I’m impressed with her bravery and saddened by her fate. I’m connected to her through the generations and proud to call her my ancestor.

I’ll also keep writing “Drascandar.” I feel a kinship with Fenn because I come from a long line of powerful women, too. Perhaps that’s why I was drawn to writing her story.

Our writing, our imagination, our stories, are within us- pulled from our psyche, our history, our very DNA. I’m so blessed and honored to write and share mine.