The McElfresh name is rare. I’ve never accidentally met someone with the name McElfresh, though others have introduced me to others with the same last name.

Every family has a history. Some can trace their family history back a few hundred years. As with most family names, “McElfresh” can be traced, but not too far.

The research I’ve done to date indicates that the McElfresh immigrants came from Scotland. Early McElfresh settlers arrived on the east coast of the United States back in the mid 1700’s, perhaps Maryland.

McElfresh as a name is patronymic** in origin, probably derived from other names. As best I can determine, McElfresh means “the son of the servant of Bricius.” He was a Gaulish saint.

Not ghoulish. Other spellings include “Mackelfriesch.” That’s ghoulish.

My father’s sister, Edna Woodward, has worked on a family tree for many years. Her work goes as far back as a John McElfresh who married an Ann Becraft in Montgomery, MD in 1817. He was the son of William McElfresh who was born in Maryland in 1789.

From then forward, the McElfresh ‘clan’ moved into Pennsylvania, westward to Ohio, south to Kentucky, then Illinois, and Missouri. My grandmother on the McElfresh side came from a French family.

Of course, that’s the family name. Every family has two or more sides in the tree. My mother’s side is Steers, which, as best we can tell is Dutch. Her mother, my grandmother (now at age 96) came from the Jeffries family, which is English.

There’s a branch with German roots, and my great grandmother’s mother was a Cherokee indian (and a twin; we have twin boys).

Tracing a family tree can be long, painstaking work for some, perhaps not so difficult for others. This journey has just begun.

Our children need to know something of their roots, their origin (besides Pike County Memorial Hospital, or Blessing Hospital, or whatever) and the gene pool.

That brings up another topic. Genes. Nature or nurture?

I once thought that personalities were heavily shaped and guided by nurture, and that nature played a less prominent role. Now, having fathered three children, I’m certain that nature plays a much more substantial role than previously thought.

When children do great things, it’s nurture. When they go astray, it’s a bad gene from the distant past.

** - ‘Patronymic’ is a modification of the father’s name borne by the son; a name derived from that of a parent or ancestor; as, Pelides, the son of Peleus; Johnson, the son of John; Macdonald, the son of Donald; Paulowitz, the son of Paul; also, the surname of a family; the family name. Duh.