“I give you this one thought to keep – I am still with you – I do not sleep, I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow, I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle Autumn rain.  When you awaken in the morning’s hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight, I am the soft stars that shine at night.  Do not think of me as gone – I am with you still in each new dawn.”

Native American Prayer

Strangers in a box

“Come look with me inside this drawer.  In this box I ofen seen, at the pictures black and white, faces proud, still, serene.

I wish I knew the people, these strangers in a box, their names, and all their memories are lost among the socks.

I wonder what their lives were like, how did they spend their days? What about their special times?  I’ll never know their ways.

If only someone had taken the time, to tell who, what, where and when.  these faces of my heritage would come alive again.  

Could this become my fate of pictures we take today?  The faces and the memories someday to be passed away?

Make time to save your stories, seize the opportunity when it knocks, or someday you and yours could be the strangers in the box.”

Anonymous

“To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps, to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love, and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrows, is always a measure of what has gone before.”

From: Alice Walker, “In These Dissenting Times” from Revolutionary Petunias: And Other Poems, 1973

“The history of our grandparents is remembered not with rose petals, but in the laughter and tears of their children and their children’s children.  It is into us that the lives of grandparents have gone.  It is in us that their history becomes a future.”

Charles and Ann Morse

“We are the rememberers, the the people left behind, to keep the one who’s gone from us alive in heart and mind; the people left to cherish and preserve a legacy.  Yes we are the rememberers and we will always be.”

Author “Unknown”

“The challenge I give you as a genealogist is to reach beyond the vital statistics to a new world of understanding both of your ancestors and yourself.  Preserve those details of your family in written form that will bring understanding to many others and truly enable their hearts along with your own to turn to their fathers.  Someone has said that there is little point in digging up an ancestor if you aren’t going to make him live.  If that is true — and I believe it is — your job is not finished until you feel a bit of what he felt, have shared vicariously in his joys and heartaches — perhaps shed a tear with him in his sorrow, laughed at the humor in his life, and felt pride in his accomplishments.”

Val D. Greenwood  — Teach me genealogy

“Lord help me dig into the past, and sift the sands of time, that I might find the roots that made this family tree mine.

Lord help me trace the ancient roads, on which my fathers trod, and led them through so many lands, to find our present sod.

Lord help me find an ancient book or dusty manuscript, that’s safely hidden now away in some forgotten crypt.

Lord let it bridge the gap that haunts my soul, when I can’t find the missing link between some name the ends the same as mine.”

Author unknown

A Happy New Year

I may bring no tear to any eye.  When this New Year in time shall end.  Let it be said I’ve played the friend, have lived, and loved, and labored here.  And made of it a happy year.

By Edgar Guest

So grateful for the whispers of loved ones departed
still here to warm our hearts as we gather round the table.
So grateful for the right now with loved ones by
our side for another chance to laugh and share
and speak out loud our thanks for another year.”

Author Unknown

“Best loved stories are not from books or film,but those from our own families.”

Author Unknown

“Family faces are magic mirrors.
Looking at people who belong to us.
We see the past, present, and future,
we make discoveries about
ourselves and them.”

Gail Lumet Buckley

“There’s a love within our family tree,
and happiness abounds.
It’s roots are deeply planted,
In rich and fertile ground.

We enjoy the rays of sunlight,
and endure the winds and rain,
and when a leaf falls from our tree,
together we share the pain.

God gave us earthly families,
and never did intend,
that bonds of love built on earth,
upon our death would end.

For when our life is over
and from earth our souls will flee,
one by one, leaf by leaf,
He’ll rejoin our family tree.”

Ron Tranmer

“Remember me in the family tree, My name, My days, My strife, Then I’ll ride upon the wings of time and live an endless life.”

Linda Goetsch

“The special book upon the shelf,
was made with many hands.
Our ancestors who posed back then,
All came from different lands.

Their pictures were all tucked away,
And rarely did we see,
The importance of these treasures,
The start of you me.

The history of our families,
Now here in black and white
Persevered with special care and time
Each page is done just right.

When time permits, we take it down,
And think of days long past.
Our hopes, our dreams, our heritage,
All safe and made to last.”

Author Unknown

“Our Ancestors’

‘If you could see your Ancestors,
all standing in a row
would you be proud of them or not
or don’t you really know?

Some strange discoveries are made
In climbing family trees
And some of them you know
do not particularly please

If you could see your ancestors,
all standing in a row
There might be some of them perhaps
you wouldn’t care to know

But there’s another question
which requires a different view
If you could meet your ancestors
would they be proud of you?”

Author Unknown

“So grateful for the whispers of loved ones departed
still here to warm our hearts as we gather round the table.
So grateful for the right now with loved ones by
our side for another chance to laugh and share
and speak out loud our thanks for another year.”

Author Unknown

“When our hearts turn to our Ancestors, something changes inside of us.  We feel part of something greater than ourselves.”  Russell M. Nelson

“It’s important to teach our children their heritage. Who are your ancestors? What were their traditions?  Each of us has a story to tell.  If these stories are unwritten, then how are your children going to know their parentage.”  Linda Weaver Clark

Dear Ancestor
“Your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished, marbled stone.

It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.

Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.

I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you.”
Author Unknown

“I am bound to them, though I cannot look into their eyes or hear their voice. I honor their history. I cherish their lives. I tell their story. I will remember them.”

Author Unknown

“We are 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 the facts, but instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the storytellers of the tribe.”

Author Unknown

“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

“I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond. And their eyes were my eyes.” Richard Llewellyn