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We Are The Chosen


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 storytellers 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