- This topic has 1 voice and 0 replies.
-
Posts
-
>
> We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find
> the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to
> tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.
>
> Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing
> life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the
> tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our
> genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we
> do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I
> stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I
told
> the ancestors, “You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of
> us.” How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there
was
> love there for me? I cannot say.
>
> It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I
do
> the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to
> weeds and indifference and saying I can’t let this happen. The bones here
> are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something
> about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to
> accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to
> respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up,
> their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.
>
> It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and
> keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they
> were doing it for us.
>
> It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth,
> without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as
we
> can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember
> them. So we do.
>
> With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we
> are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I
> tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next
> generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family
> storytellers.
>
> That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young
> and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those whom we had never
> known before.
>
>
(Author unknown)
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
