why genealogy?

Today I look back over 41 years of marriage and see the longevity of a relationship. With this same sense of permanence, I look over the tree that forms my ancestry. My genealogy. My history. My genetic and cultural paths into this world. With the grace of God, this part of me that was once bound in the past with all those unnamed ancestors will continue into the future with descendants I cannot even imagine. A weird bit of philosophy coming from me, the one who needs or seeks proof in everything, and yet I have faith that the good (and unfortunately the bad) in all of us is not new or unique. Those things have lived before and will be born in the future.

Why genealogy? Why this curiosity about my roots? All I know is that as a child I was surrounded by older adults who told stories of their past and of those who had already passed on to their rewards, as it was put. I would sit on Sunday afternoons and listen for hours to the stories that were told over iced tea or dr. pepper in a lawn chair in the shade of an old oak tree. Perhaps these things from my childhood placed a curiosity within me for seeking out who I am and from whom I come. Perhaps these stories and times also implanted a love for history that would not truly blossom until many years later when I lived in a place that screamed tradition and history -- Charleston, South Carolina.

A high school research paper had been a daunting prospect until I decided to research my history as the basis for the project. It was a start. It was the spark that set off a love of genealogy that has spanned 45-here-or-take-a-few-years of searching for that past that combines within me to make up who I am and from where I come.