Cyber Namesakes

I'm glad that my parents weren't hippies.

I don't think I would have liked a name like "Summer" or "Raindrop." Not that there's anything wrong with those names. I'm actually kind of satisfied with plain old "Julie."

One day, I was fooling around on the computer with my school's library research system, and I thought that it might be fun to look up other Julies. Not just any other Julies, but people like me,
Julie Hendersons.

Although not terribly accurate, the phonedisc program spit out a couple hundred Julia and Julie Hendersons. Before the librarian returned, I'd printed out all the addresses of my namesakes. It took all the paper in the printer.

For weeks I described my dream project to my classmates: to travel around the country interviewing and photographing Julie Hendersons. 24 Hours in Cyberspace gave me an excuse to start a lifelong project - finding other people just like me.
This year, I can confidently say that I found myself.
Over a hundred times,in fact.

Julia D. Henderson




please scroll horizantally. thanks.
    Julia Dorothy Henderson
    Rochester, NY
    20 years old
    Occupation: Professional student
    Education: BA in Photography,R.I.T.,1997
    Religion: Presbyterian
    Favorite Color: royal blue
    New Year's Resolution: none

"My life changed when my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I admire her strength and her courage in combatting cancer. I look at life very differently now. I try to live in the present, and I try to make the most of every moment - that's why I love photography. I can preserve that moment."

Julie A. Henderson
    Julie Ann Henderson
    Columbus, OH
    31 years old
    Occupation: Massage Therapist
    Education: B.S. in Psychology, Miami University
    Masters in Human Development, Penn State
    Religion: raised Presbyterian
    Favorite Color: purple
    New Year's Resolution: none

"I'm an authentic Julie Henderson, not a married Julie Henderson. I was twenty-nine by the time I got married. I thought, I can't be Julie Bernard, I'm Julie Henderson. I was really tied to that. I think that part of it is that my dad had three daughters, so there was nowhere that our name was going to go, technically anyway. When my dad found out that I wasn't going to change my name, I thought that he was going to get up and do a little dance of joy."

"Something that has made a really big impact on me was working with people in my research study who had HIV and AIDS. A lot of them were of the attitude that you have to make the most of everything, and just do what you want to do. It puts a whole different light on things. You realize not to waste time doing stuff just because you feel like you have to do it, or because some tells you that you have to do it. Do what you want to do; do what feels right."

Dr. Julie K. Henderson
    Dr. Julie Kay Henderson
    Oshkosh, WI
    45 years old
    Occupation: Journalism Professor,
    University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh
    Education: B.S. in Mass Communication, Moorhead State Univ.
    M.S. in Communication,
    North Dakota State Univ.
    Ph.D. in Research Methodology
    and Higher Education, Univ. of N.D.
    Religion: Lutheran
    Favorite Color: jade green
    New Year's Resolution: Pay off credit cards

"This is such a sad story. I have a friend whose last name is Henderson, and he's black. We were talking one time about where our names came from. I told him that my grandparents had come from Norway. His name came from his grandfather who had been a slave, and he had been owned by a Henderson. The slave had taken the owner's name. When I think of my name, that's my heritage. I think of Norway and the people that came from there. For him, all that had been lost. It broke my heart and it made me sick at the same time, to think that there had been a Henderson at some point and time that owned slaves."

"The adoption of my daughter definitely affected my life. I adopted because I wanted to parent, and I wasn't married. I have hemophilia, and I knew that I was probably never going to carry a child biologically. So I searched and searched, and I found an adoption agency in Texas that would place babies in your home as long as you are willing to take a Hispanic child."
Julia S. Henderson

"The adoption was my biggest change or decision. Especially when you're crossing racial lines. There was a lot of 'are you sure you want to do this?' type of thing. I just have a strong commitment that all children deserve homes. It has made us a trans-racial family, and a lot of times, there are a lot of preconceived notions about racial identities. When I met my husband, who is black, we ran into a lot of things. People automatically assume that we don't have educations, of which we both definitely do. They think we are a little less than what the 'natural' family should be."