With so many interesting folks waiting on Ancestry.com with their little green leaves waving at me for attention, I am not going into such great detail about the folks that follow my 4 great grandparents. I so want to get many of the lines checked. At this rate I will have to live to be a 1000. I do want to do real justice to these "immediate" folks. But I want to try not to get so involved with the ancestors beyond. I have 2 more great grandparents who needs devoted attention and then I must speed up!
Why I Love Genealogy
My son asked me recently what made me so interested in genealogy. I have thought about that question a lot. Here are a few thoughts that have come to mind. I hope this answers your question, Scott. I really appreciated your asking it.
- I get so excited thinking about the next person I am going to find.
- I love to get to know people in the present. This is very similar. I still find out about them.
- It is fascinating.
- There are a lot of nifty things that could be lost forever. The number one thing I would have hated not to learn about is the Cherokee heritage. I love, love, love it. And I love it has been so traceable beyond my wildest dreams.
- Its fun!
- It's a puzzle to be solved that has a personal flavor. I enjoy playing detective and hopefully having other relatives now or in the future care about the information.
- It's educational. I love to learn. I love the challenge of research.
- I always throw myself into a new experience. This one will never, ever be boring.
- It gets to be an obsession, consuming - an addiction.
- I like history.
- I'd rather walk in a cemetery than a mall.
- There is actually a sense of awe, especially with the Cherokee heritage. It was big in both my Grandmothers side (Lucinda) and my Grandfather's side (Albert). I never knew. There are many many Cherokee to learn about. I am in awe again today having just verified there is another very famous Chief in a line I have barely touched. So little time.....
- I am getting better as a researcher - a mandatory requisite.
- If there was a 12 step-addiction program to overcome this addiction, I would avoid the program.
Two quotes I found that I saved because I enjoy them so much - one swells my heart and the other makes me smile every time I read it.
"I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me,
those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and
his father, and all our fathers, and in front, to see my son,
and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond. And their eyes were my eyes.
As I felt, so they had felt, and were to feel, as then, so now,
as tomorrow and forever. Then I was not afraid, for I was in
a long line that had no beginning, and no end. And the hand of his father
grasped my father's hand, and his hand was in mine, and my unborn
son took my right hand, and all, up and down the line that stretched
from Time That Was, to Time That Is, and Is Not Yet, raised their
hands to show the link, and we found that we were one, born of Woman,
Son of Man, made in the Image, fashioned in the Womb by the Will of God,
the Eternal Father."
Extracted from the work of Richard Llewellyn "How Green Was My Valley"
and
Genealogy is where you confuse the dead and irritate the living.
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