These pages are dedicated to my family tree. Many people have asked me "why I bother chasing dead people". The answer is hard to give. I recently came across an explanation on the internet that describes it better than I ever could. Unfortunately, the author is unknown, but I'm sure he or she spoke for many of us when they wrote the following:
We are the chosen. 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, is 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.
It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am and why I do the things I do. 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 both young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.
I hope there is some information on these following pages that will help you tell the story of your family.
Denise Murray Foertsch
dfoertsch@comcast.net
