You might be surprised at what you will find hiding in your family tree but unless you search and document your findings you may never know.

 

The more time that passes, there is more of a danger that older records cannot or will not be found or be able to be verified, older relatives pass away and the stories are gone forever and who knows, what “skeletons” good or bad are in your family closet?

 

Something you find might be embarrassing, might be scandalous but in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter in 50 or 100 years?  But the stories and emotions will be gone and that is just sad.

 

In my own family research I have found some surprising information and I am sure I will find more along the way.  In fact, I have found that I am related to Lizzie Borden.  Remember the rhyme?

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.

 

 

 

 

The Salem Witch Trials – I have connections to those too (Henry Lake’s wife, of Dorchester. 1650?).  As I progress on this site, I will be adding my family tree information.

 

 

My greatest concern right now is to try and encourage YOU to start looking now, start writing down those stories of the things that happened when you were young, when your kids were young, stories your parents and grandparents told you.  DON’T LET these times pass away with your loved ones. 

 

My daughter asked me the other day about an experience that happened to her dad and I when we were young.  I realized, that story is NOT written down anywhere and if I don’t write it down, it will be gone forever.  She will not remember it and her kids will never know the story.

 

Your stories do not have to be a major production such as doing scrapbook pages, which I am choosing to do and will share with you from time to time.   It can be as simple as writing in a spiral notepad, a 3-ring binder, on the computer, anywhere.  Just get your stories written down.  Talk to your older relatives and find out as much as you can before it is too late.   Take pictures, write down dates, jot notes down as they happen and expand on them a few minutes before you go to sleep at night.

 

“In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage – to know who we are and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.” 

- Alex Haley

Monna (Shaw-Davis) Ellithorpe

Scrapbooking Your Family Tree.com

 

Filed under: General Genealogy

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