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....  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.... 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 who we had never known before.

Author Unknown