My dad was an avid genealogist. It was a lifelong passion for him. He would often take trips to cemeteries to photograph the gravestones of long-dead relatives, and at he attended family reunions with pen, paper, and a lot of questions.
Once, when I was fairly young, he showed me a hand-drawn pedigree chart--my ancestors, carefully arranged on a piece of paper. I remember being keenly interested as he told me some of their stories. But the genealogy bug never quite bit me like it had bitten my dad. I was always peripherally interested in his progress over the years, regularly asking him how he was coming with the family history. I listened intently to all his new discoveries and enjoyed pouring over the various descendant charts he printed out. But genealogy was always his hobby, not mine.
Dad died on May 26, 2011. He was quite young, and it was very unexpected. During the weeks that followed, my thoughts kept returning to our family history--my father’s legacy. I knew that I would be the one to preserve all his work. It wasn’t so much a decision as it was a simple fact. Still, I was somewhat daunted.
Sometime over that summer I worked up the courage to log into his Ancestry.com account (thankfully, Dad was never one for imaginitive passwords). The next few months were some of the most amazing of my life. Browsing the family tree and piecing together the steps my dad had taken was a wonderful, eye-opening experience. I had finally been bitten by the genealogy bug.
And so, genealogy became one of the many gifts my dad gave to me.
It’s been about a year now, and I feel like I’ve grown somewhat from a credulous newbie, unquestioningly accepting every possible lead as fact, into a hardened skeptic, making tentative hypotheses and seeking documentation. I still have a lot to learn, though, and I decided that starting a blog is a good way both to organize my thoughts and find others who are researching my ancestors.
No comments:
Post a Comment