I’ve been musing about something personal.

“A hundred thousand years ago, there were people who stayed by the campfire and people who wandered. I’m pretty sure I’m a direct descendant of the wandering type.”

This is from the introduction to the Amazon Prime series, Reacher.

It’s supposed to provide context for understanding the main character, Jack Reacher, who has no permanent address, no property, and wanders carrying nothing but a toothbrush.

I should have some of this in my genes since there was a lot of wondering in my family. But, honestly, unlike Reacher, I feel feel more akin to those who stayed around the campfire.

The title of this post is somewhat misleading, as I didn’t actively “choose” this island. I was just born here, grew up here, traveled enough to experience life in other places, and gravitated back here. Back home. I’ve never felt that “rock fever” reported by so many others who have trouble adjusting to living on an island, and yearn instead to be in a place where you can hop in a car and drive all day without running out of road.

And I have to wonder why, since like most families, we’ve had our share of wanderers. Many of you have read a good part of the memoirs of my maternal great-great grandmother, Eleanor Howard (Thomas) Brittain Knowlton, who lived from 1834 to 1908. In it, she recounts traveling from Missouri to California by covered wagon, and then following the seasons up and down California.

Her daughter, Helene Frances, married my great-grandfather, James Frederick Moore Yonge, who was born in March 1842 in Koblenz, “then the westernmost part of the state of Prussia,” where his father was studying or practicing medicine. But the family’s roots were in England, where they later returned, although the sons were educated in France after leaving Germany, and were said to be fluent in English, German and French.

By 1864 they were scattered across the world. Or across the British Empire, I suppose, as evidence by a legal notice that appeared in The Morning Post (London) in April 1864, notifying the siblings of John Vaughan Carden Reed of his death at sea o or about December 31, 1858.

By this time, James Frederick and his brother, Stephen, were living in Melbourne, Australia and working on a sheep ranch. Another brother, Francis Arthur Holmes Yonge, was in Mauritius, and their sister, Eliza, was in Sebastopol, in the Crimea, with her husband.

My paternal grandparents both immigrated to the U.S. from Scotland in the early 20th century, as did so many of their siblings and cousins. And my dad continued the western movement when he arrived in Hawaii as a 25-year old salesman/surfer in May 1939, found it exotic and exciting, and stayed.

I should be worried that there’s something wrong in my makeup, but luckily it’s too late to worry about such things. But it still is odd and somewhat puzzling to me.