Keeping the Memories

I first got into the genealogy business about fifteen years ago. We were at a family reunion on my husband's side and all the elderly aunts were sitting around chatting and remembering the good old days. They regaled us with stories of how their parents owned the resort at the lake, who dated whom and whose grandchildren were the smartest :) Almost all of the aunts were widows by then and it struck me....wow, soon we are going to lose all of these wonderful memories of times gone by.

That got me started.

There weren't any genealogists in that branch of the family tree and I knew if I didn't do it no one would. All those wonderful memories and stories would be lost. Stories that my children and grandchildren would appreciate one day.

Genealogy >does< run in my side of the family. My grandmother had been a great historian and had recorded many family stories. She recorded births, marriages and kept the obituaries. She was also a great letter writer and kept every letter received. Those letters were a record to her past. Oh, she would have loved the internet. She loved to stay in touch!

My grandfather was also into recording times gone by. He kept a diary...not just any diary....but a series of diaries for fifty three years...yes...that's not a misprint...53 years. What the weather was doing, how the crops were, what he did and people around him did on a day to day basis. Such discipline.

I guess that gave me the pedigree to be a genealogist. It is in my genes.

~BJ