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Until the death of my mother, Flora S. Riding in 1999, I never gave much thought to who my ancestors were or where they came from. Since that time, it has really hit home that my parents are gone and my brothers, my sister and I are now the ages that my parents were when I was a young man. I realize our own mortality now, which is something I never gave much thought to when I was younger. Finding my ancestors has now moved up dramatically on my priority list. I want to find as many of my ancestors as possible for three reasons.
My first reason is that I want my children to know where they came from. I don't want them to be in the same position someday, that I'm in right now. My second reason is that I want to know myself. Thirdly, my brothers and sister don't know anymore about their ancestry than I do. They are older than I am, so they definitely have memories of our grandfathers (our grandmothers both died before we were born) that I don't have, but they don't know any more about our great grandparents and beyond, than I do. I want them to know.
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