We Are 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, to tell the family story
and to feel that somehow they know and approve.

Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but,
instead, breathing life into all who have gone before.
We are the storytellers of the tribe. All tribes have
one. We have been called, as it were, by 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 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 whom we had never known before.
-Author Unknown