Un choix

Il y a bientôt 30 ans que j'ai commencé ce long chemin! Retrouver nos ancêtres. Pour donner de la chair à leurs os et les faire revivre. Raconter l'histoire de la famille et sentir que d'une manière ou d'une autre, ils connaissent et approuvent. Faire de la généalogie n'est pas une froide collecte de faits, mais plutôt donner vie à tous ceux qui nous ont précédés. Donc, je le fais. En les trouvant, nous nous trouvons en quelque sorte nous-mêmes. Combien de fois ai-je voulu dire à mes ancêtres : Vous avez une famille merveilleuse ; vous seriez fier de nous. Cela va au-delà de la simple documentation des faits. C'est la quête de notre identité

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The Bones of My Bones

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 who we had never known before. 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 who we had never known before.
by Della M. Cummings Wright; Rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943.

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