Learning who we came from

Click on images to see larger .... (on the pedigree chart, put YOU as #1 and then work backward on your family lines)

We each have and live our own lives, but have you ever wondered about the lives of those ancestors who you came from?

Their stories can be fascinating, to be sure. Take the time to ask your grandparents and other older relatives, to tell you the story of THEIR life and about THEIR parents and THEIR grandparents. You will learn some interesting things that will help you know more about them and their feelings and thoughts and how they dealt with situations in their life. Then record these stories for your own posterity to have. But it’s important to understand and know who we each came from because they are certainly a part of us.

Mend the broken bridge

Families are so precious and important in the scheme and plan of our life. We may be to the point where we have not fully appreciated or understood that valuable insight yet.

As we mature and have experiences that make us realize how greatly we are linked and bonded to family members, then we begin to see the larger picture of what the word FAMILY really means.

One of the greatest tragedies in a family is to have someone within it, that has alienated them self from everyone....for whatever reason. And there are many reasons: being misunderstood; having hurt feelings; being judged too harshly; living a different lifestyle; etc.

Whatever reason is keeping family members from being a part of the family circle, it is very important to begin now to mend the broken bridge back into the family. It may not be easy...but it is NOT impossible!! Families are yearning for loved ones to return to them again. If such a person would begin today to turn their heart and minds towards their family again, they would discover the healing balm waiting for them in the open arms of their loved ones.

Genealogy....are you doing it?

Genealogy.. is the search for information on our ancestors. It is compiling a list of our ancestors and their descendants and discovering where WE fit into the pedigree line. It is learning more about a certain ancestor...what kind of person they were and what they did in their life. It is coming to truly KNOW and understand the family we came from. In order to know and understand ourselves better....we need to know WHO we came from.

I have two blogs that I devote to Genealogy....one of which is writing about your life story. In order for our descendants...our posterity... to know about us way in the future....we need to leave something about ourselves in the here and now.

Click on the following links to learn how to begin doing your Genealogy and how to start writing your life story.


http://stepatatimegenealogy.blogspot.com/

http://wwwyourlifestory.blogspot.com/

What is a home?

A home can be many things to many people.

A home can be a place where our precious family abides. A home can be a place of refuge, safety and protection from the world and the elements. A home can be a large debt that weighs us down. A home can be a place filled with love, peace, happiness, and God. A home can be a place where we store all the accumulated “stuff”, or items, we have collected all our life. A home can be a fancy showplace with expensive furnishings and such. A home can be a place of learning and growth. A home can be a haven for a friend in need. A home can be a “heaven on earth” for all who dwell therein.

Grieving

We have all lost someone we love through the process of death. And we all know how hard and difficult that time is for us.

Yesterday I attended the funeral of a family member. It was a very special, uplifting service. One of the speakers made the following comment, that I would like to share. I am not sure I have the wording exact. He said, “The only way to get rid of the pain of grieving, is to get rid of the love in life”. Pretty profound, I thought.

What is a legacy?

Webster says it is “something left by will; a bequest; something handed down or derived from an ancestor or earlier time”.

Do we have any legacies left by any of our ancestors? Their journal, diary, or life story? If we do, we know the great value and treasure these things are to us. These legacies left, help us to know about that ancestor.

What if we did not have anything left by any ancestor? What if they never wrote anything about themselves? What a tragedy. How would we be able to know them?...To know the kind of person they were, their feelings, thoughts, the kind of life they lived, what they did and accomplished. Honestly....how would we feel?

Would we want OUR posterity, in time, to feel that way about us? Would we want to be a great big question mark in the mind of our descendants? Think about it. Down through the generations of our family...no one would have a clue about US...because we did not take the time to write about our self and leave it as a legacy (a gift of ourself) for our posterity. Our life story...what we are all about...will have been buried with us. What a tragedy that CAN be. But it doesn’t HAVE to be.

Let’s begin today. Let’s start writing our life story for our future generations of family. We do not want to be forgotten or unknown to them, do we?

So what do we do....how do we begin to write our life story?

Near the top of this blog home page, on the right hand side is a section titled “visit my 4 other blogs”. Click on my blog titled “Writing Your Life Story...one memory jog at a time”. Here I give you step by step instructions for getting started, some tips, and a multitude of questions that will help to jog your memory of happenings and incidents in YOUR life. These are the things you write about. These are the things your family would want to know about you.

So begin right now. It will be fun and extremely rewarding to you....AND a priceless possession in the hands of your family. It will be your gift of love to them.

What I value and treasure most in my life

I have never desired tons of money....only to have sufficient for my needs (and a few “wants”). I have never coveted those large fancy homes (can’t even keep clean the very small place I have now)....or the shiny new cars (I don’t like payments).

I have never been out of the United States...never craved to. And I have only been to maybe less than a dozen states (either because I lived there or near there or my children live there).

Thought only briefly about taking a cruise a few times....but only very briefly. I would sooner visit the rest of the U.S. first.

I have been fortunate that I have not had to work most of my life (just a stay at home mommy)...so I have no “career path” that is driving me.

My interests are very simple and basic....I am more of a homebody and not even a “party-type” person. I am sure I sound very dull and un-interesting. But everyone is different in their needs, desires, wants, abilities, personalities, and interests.

So, ruling out all of the above as far as what I value and treasure in life....what IS it then that is so terribly important, precious and valuable to me? What brings contentment to my soul? What is it that I deem as my greatest treasures in my life?

My family...My faith...My Church...My belief and trust in God

That’s it in a nutshell....very simple, basic, down to earth, and extremely rewarding, peaceful, and fulfilling above anything else that I can ever imagine, or desire, for myself and my life.

What do I want to do, or be, when I grow up?

In my senior year of High School many years ago, I thought (for a short while) that I would like to join the Navy (Waves) when I graduated. That didn’t last long. I never learned to make goals and work towards them (still don’t). I just lived a day at a time back then, and come what may. If someone would have told me back then that I would religiously be where I am now…I would have laughed at them.

After graduation my Grandma must have been doing some heavy thinking in my behalf. Evidently she did not like my step-mother (I did…she was very good to me) and she thought I needed to get away from home life (or whatever her reason really was…..I don’t remember at the time). Anyway, she made arrangements with the family across the street from us. Their daughter just graduated college and about 5 other of her friends were going to California to be school teachers. I ended up traveling with them in two cars and my grandmother had made arrangements for me to go to the home of her nephew and his family, of whom I did not know.

I stayed with them for a few weeks or so and then they helped me get a car, a job, and a place to live. After several months, I met my first husband and we were married 3 months later.

Anyway, it seemed as though my life was being planned out for me by others after graduation. And after I became so close to my Church and God, I received a personal revelation about my life…and that is exactly what I truly believe that God was doing with this inward, shy, full of potential, young girl. He was leading, guiding and helping her to where he would like her to be…because he had something great for her in her life. And if she did not balk, and “do her own thing”…great things were spiritually in store for her.

Through the years of my life since then, it has been like many, many puzzle pieces of my life that was all coming together and forming a grand picture….mine for the taking!! But not without sacrifice and hard work. We all have the gift of free agency…to choose for our self what we want for our life. Do we want happiness and joy, or sadness and misery?
It all depends upon our choices.

If I Had All the Money and Time in the World, What Would I Do?

My friend L. gave me this question to ponder and write about.

1) I probably would not change my life style much because I am me and never have desired much of the things of the world. I can't justify spending money on worthless trinkets that can't help and benefit other people, OR MYSELF.

2) I would NOT desire large fancy homes or luxury cars...no matter the money. Never cared about that, ever!

3) It would be wonderfully fun to randomly pass out a $100 bill to people as I walk by them and see their reaction of surprise and delight.

4) I would love to stand by the check out stand in a grocery store and see the look on peoples faces when I pay for their groceries. THIS HAPPENED TO ME ONCE....but my groceries came to less than $20. The guy had a big roll of money and I was told that he did that quite often in the store. It was a wonderful feeling to have someone want to do that for ME.

5) I would pay off all my family members house mortgages and car loans. I would pay for all my grandkids to go to college.

6) I would donate money to the city for the purchase of a huge area of land to be made into an arboretum complete with animals and birds.

7) For myself, I would love to take a trip to Germany with all my kids, and spend several months or so just touring around. That is where my ancestors came from.

8) I would pay for a live-in maid or for a full time nurse in the homes of the very elderly who struggle along and who can't afford this and who need it very much because of their health conditions and circumstances.

9) I would create a large animal refuge park (like a zoo) with lots of activities and rides for families and have sort of a circus atmosphere to it. IT WOULD BE FREE FOR EVERYONE TO ENJOY.

10) I would pay for nannies to come and stay with children, while I would send their parents off on little romantic get-away trips so that they can have little honeymoons all the time to rekindle the flames of love and closeness.

11) I would go to small towns that do not have many wholesome activities for kids to do. I would build an indoor and outdoor facility large enough to hold all kinds of things for the youth to enjoy, such as skating rink, skate board area, game rooms, amusement park and rides, dirt bike trails and hills, etc.

Family

When you think about the evolution of a family it is quite amazing. We are born into this world as tiny helpless babies, totally dependent upon the care and nurturing of two other people….our mother and father (our parents).

We have grandparents…who are the parents of our parents. Our parents once were little tiny babies just like we were, and so were our grandparents, and so it was on down the line back through our ancestors.

Our parents take very good care of us and we grow and learn and grow and learn until we are old enough to find a companion and get married. Then we begin to have little babies of our very own. We become parents.

We raise our little children and take good care of them. They grow and learn and grow and learn until they are old enough to find a companion and get married. Then they begin to have little babies of their own. They become parents and we become grandparents..

The cycle goes on and on and on, through time.

Each family is very unique. The mother brings with her the background, culture, and traditions of the family that she was raised up in. And the father is the same. So here are two people from different backgrounds coming together and blending their different heritages. They bring forth children who inherit something from each of their parents backgrounds. Then each child in that family marries someone who comes from totally different backgrounds, cultures, and traditions. Then they have children who inherit the combined cultures not only from their parents, but their grandparents on both sides of the family on down through time. This creates all different backgrounds of heritages within the family.

What an awesome and marvelous thing it is, when you really ponder about it all. And life goes on and on through the ages….blending all these people and their different cultures and backgrounds together. What a tremendous potpourri of heritages.

Can you imagine what it will be like in the spirit world after this life, when we all meet again as a complete family. So much diversity! It will be very interesting, indeed.