The Storyteller - for Genealogy Buffs

Just a little something that I found while doing my genealogy and I found it very touching and very true.

The Story Teller

My feelings are, 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, to breathe 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
stories. So, we do.

In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How may
graves have I stood before and cried? I have lost count.
How many times have I told the ancestors you have a
wonderful famiy, 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 the 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 mae 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 story tellers.

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.