Someone sent this to our TXGenWeb & I have permission to share.
We are the chosen. 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, 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 if it were in 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, their losses and building 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 & immense never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness
to go on 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 young and old
to step up and put flesh on the bones.
Author Unknown