This is not a genealogy book you say? Well you better read on, because you are about to be proven wrong by this review.
I spent a little over a year with the Ancestral Grimoire doing the exercises and prompts, getting to know more of my gene pool, and digging deeper into ancestors that were in the not too distant past. The author, Nancy Hendrickson, is not new to family history research. Nor is she new to genealogy books. You can check out some of her titles on Amazon. I have friends and relatives that have bought this book. So let me ask you, if you are among them, where are you with your Grimoire? Are you connecting with your ancestors regularly? What can they tell you about your family history?
Nancy’s book is broken up into 2 sections. The first section is a fast read of what kind of tools, i.e. tarot, oracles, Lenormand, pendulum, runes, charm casting, sigils, bones, augury, etc., Nancy believes will help you use the book. It also has an explanation of the Neo-pagan sabbats. I am not pagan, so I disregarded that information. No, no, no, no, now stop…you do not have to be a card reader to do the exercises and prompts in the book. But, it can help you if you are. Do not let that last statement intimidate you. To my relatives reading this: Face it, on both sides we had and have card lovers. Whether for games or divination, they are in our tree. Yes, we had, and still have card readers in our family. So accept it is in the blood. But I digress, you do not need to be a tarot reader to use this book!
The second section is a calendar year of monthly prompts, tips, and exercises and optional crafts and rituals for you to use to connect with an ancestor that possesses that “talent”or magic for that month. For instance, January is Inherited Magic. March is Healing Magic. April is Land Magic. July is Weather Magic. September is Sky Magic, and so on. At the end there are appendices to assist you if you are a novice at divination. Once again, you do not need to know tarot to use this book or even use the decks (which are not my flavor) Nancy uses. I am very, very picky about the history of cards and not many like to remember that yes, Tarocchi was an actual Italian card game and Tarocchi decks came from Italy first. The first card playing decks themselves were brought to Europe by the Turks. I preferred divinaton on an Italian deck or the Mary El Tarot. The meanings of those cards do not correspond to the meanings in the appendices simply because they are their own reading systems.
Now on to how I have used this book.
As you may know, I have been studying my family history for over 10 years. In the past couple of years I have moved into the “realm” of ancestral healing, which, in most forms, asks you to honor ancestors by connecting with them in any way you can. This book is not my first foray into using divination to see if my ancestors wish to send messages to help me learn more about them. Believe you me, there are a ton of us out there that sometimes resort to a card pull to help us figure out why we can’t find a birth record for so and so. That being said, I have found that when you openly and gratefully attempt to connect with ancestors who want to come forward, and have their stories told, it becomes easier and easier to connect with them. They have visited you in dreams, haven’t they?
This book does not require you to know your COMPLETE genealogy going back 400 years, but having been living with the genealogy for a decade was a huge help. An understanding of your recent roots should help along with a bit of cultural history and understanding of the history of the regions of the world where your ancestors also lived should help. If you skip a month, who cares. If you want to do September in May, go ahead. There are no rules on how you use the book. I would just only ask that you do the first prompt before you even start section 1. Just do it! It is fun!
Here is a little on what happened to me. Quite a few months the ancestors were African. One was Scandinavian. July was Weather Magic. So what did I do? I went outside to do the prompts. Guess what happened? It started to rain while the sun was out. I was on a covered porch. The prompts in the book led me to my 3rd great grandfather. A German immigrant. I knew about his life, but, apparently not that much. So after I did the prompts, I started to look into him again. What did I miss that was weather related? Welp, as it turned out, I knew he lived in Chicago during the Great Fire of 1871. Yeppers, that fire was caused by weather. But guess what else? The home where he and my 3rd great grandmother lived sat one block out of the burn zone. His son lived across the street, also out of the burn zone. Is not wind and lightning weather? Could the rain that fell when the sun was out have meant something as well? I didn’t learn his house didn’t burn until his birthday in July which was July 11. See how that works? Let me tell you something. That birthday thing happens more than you think.
September was Sky Magic. That month’s prompts had me looking at my Roma ancestry in more detail which ended up being extremely profound for me, especially after I read the book Gypsy Genealogy. If you do September, try sitting outside under the sky when you are doing the exercise in the book.
During April last year, that month’s ancestor was a land whispering ancestor (think planter, farmer, herbalist, etc.) who was a female on my female line who lived in the 1st century in the near East, of Southern Asia. I suspect it was the Slavic area of that region. Why would I know that it was Slavic? Because I got her name and it is traditionally a Slavic name.
Don’t believe me? Then don’t get the book.
If you do, here is a tip – if your ancestors lived in Angola for centuries on your father’s side, and lived in the 3rd century, then skip the prompt “Where did my ancestor live?” Something else I should mention is, if you are reading this and thinking you don’t use any of those runes or Lenormand things I mentioned above or sigils, etc., fine. Then skip them. I certainly didn’t make a sigil or rain stick as was suggested. Most months I didn’t even use a tarot deck. It won’t hurt your research in any way. I certainly don’t use all of those tools I mentioned, but the one thing I would ask though is that you use a pendulum and a map to help you narrow down where you are researching and to help you understand the cultural history of their time.
So, go find your quiet place, a place you like to meditate or pray, or the space where you work with your ancestors or research, and connect. Have fun, and remember, use the book any way you like and don’t stress about it and don’t forget to thank your ancestors regularly.
Cinziarosa's Descendants (c) 