General Chat

The Story Tellers: We are the chosen ones.

My feelings are that 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.

To me, 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 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 bones 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 they fought to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. 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 them and they are us.
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 their 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 put flesh on the bones.

Written by Della M. Cummings Wright and re-written by her grand daughter, Della JoAnn McGinnis Johnson.

Interesting piece well written.

This is why I enjoy searching for families to create trees...Not only my own but other peoples,,so as to bring their past back to life...It's very rewarding......LES

I love it Dermot and you being a wordsmith would surely enjoy how well written it is.

Les - I believe we honour those who have gone before us by bringing them back to life.

Thank you for this post SueMaid. If you don't mind I will copy the words to send to my sisters - maybe it will help them understand my fascination with 'dead people' ;-)

Lovely Suemaid :-)

Of course I don't mind Lyndi - I copied it because I love the words. My brother once introduced me as the "family historian" and I felt proud.

That's a lovely way to be introduced, much better than the 'weird one' :-)

My thoughts exactly Suemaid, brought a small tear to my eye.

Carol :-)

I think that sometimes we get caught up in facts and figures and we forget that our ancestors were flesh and blood.

I'm glad you have enjoyed reading these words.

That is exactly how I feel SueMaid.

I am documenting each branch of my Ancestors in files, with Write-Ups on each person, Certificates, Census Records, photographs, Pictures of where they lived, etc. l like to look for"Story behind the facts". I feel I need to have recorded history on all those who have gone before us.

eg. After a year of trying to find out what happened to my x3 Great Uncle, I managed to find out on Google, that he was torpedoed by a German UBoat during WW1 whilst he served in the Merchant Navy aged 69. There are actually YouTube videos of divers in the Wreck.
When his name came up on the screen with the video of the wreck in the background, haunting music playing, I just cried. It was like a bereavement, although I never actually new him or of him until recently!!!

We are definitely "The Story Tellers" for our families and for our future descendants :-)

Jemima - welcome to the boards :-)

I have a copy of an account in a set of war diaries detailing my great grandfather's death in WW1 in France. How sad I felt reading it and knowing what his last moments were. Something his family didn't know.

"The Story Tellers" for our families I like that a lot :-D

My family always joke when I start to relate tales of what I've found out about our missing families from many generations past, but I know in my heart that they're pleased I've uncovered the secrets and 'put flesh on bones'.

Thank you SueM

Don't you wish Sue that you could have been able to get all this information while certain family members were still alive to enjoy it?

I have such depth of knowledge of my family history now, which I did not have the technology skills, etc. to have until recent years. How I often tell my husband I wish my Great Aunt Nesta was alive to know all this. She would love it!!!

My pleasure, Mau :-)

SueMaid,

A beautiful piece of writing :-)

But can I add that as well as searching the records and trying to flesh out the past, we take time to record our own memories.

How did we spend our childhoods and how did we meet our partners?

These are questions that I would dearly love answers to, but alas for those people now gone, I will never know.

I have started to record my own history for those who come after.

Whilst quite unremarkable in the overall scheme of things I want my children to know of their origins, not just the UK ones but also of their Polish and Ukrainian ones :-)

That's why I love looking for my ancestors. Bringing the past to life, and learning the story of how we came to be where we are today. I love trying to imagine their lives, and any tiny bit of information is a treasure to me. If I come across any photographs, all the better! :-)

I agree Allan. Awhile back I started a scrapbook about myself. I have put in photos and stories about my childhood and my life.

How very true. As the story teller of our tribe I have to know fact so I can bulid up a picture of their lives as said putting flesh on bones. I like reseach what was going on about them at the time, clothes they would wear conditions of where they worked.

I also like to find out the politics of the time, who was the reigning monarch and the working and living conditions.

Jemima my father in law told me so much about my husband's family and most of it proved true. My father knew his grandparent's names and my mother knew her paternal grandmother's maiden name. It all helped :-)