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A few years ago I started wondering about myself, my ancestors, and my descendants. What did I know about all those strange names of whom I had heard my parents discuss? How, exactly, did all those strange stories (precious folklore as I now describe them)ever get started; and what kind of lives did they live? Then I thought: "No problem, I will simply visit my elders and recap this thing right away!"
Little did I realize how small my list of interviewable people would be. Before long, I started out asking my aged elders to share the birth and death records from their Bibles, and other records. I also remember asking one of my Aunts to accompany me on visits to cemeteries in order to seek and share information about our relatives, but It didn't take long to understand that I had waited too late to seek information from many people that I once knew. Although I ended with quite a treasure trove of genealogical data, many loose ends remain.
Ultimately, after receiving information from many people (some of whom donated large genealogies)I have been able to share my information with others. Occasionaly, people still provide me with updated information,ie., marriages, deaths, and births. For all this I am very thankful, for this is information which we intend to pass on through future generations.
So, as I think about reunions of the past, to times when we younger ones didn't think, or care about those ugly old people sitting around the room in chairs, I know now, that right before our eyes sat a virtual kaleidoscope of genealogical change. Each year we would find some missing, but new ones always came forth to take their places. Should one ask how this can be, I know, for today I am one of those old folk sitting around the room in a chair,as the young ones do what their parents did a few years ago!
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