Ah, But of course!

 Ah, But of course!

Most of my family roots are underground. Only a genealogist regards a step backwards as progress.Time flies! Genealogists are the navigators!

Snobs talk as if they had begotten their own ancestors!

A COMPLETE Genealogy just can’t be..there’s always more.

Blessed are the Elderly for they remember what we never knew.

Age is a high price to pay for maturity!

A well-written life is as rare as a well-spent one.

A family history shows you have lived!

A generation that ignores history has neither past nor future.

Search long enough and EVERYONE connects somehow.

I should have asked them BEFORE they died!

There is no such thing as a useless piece of information.

The world is run by those who show up for the meeting.

Time and genealogy waits for no man.

Trees without roots fall over.

We are all related…relatively speaking.

We shall find no ancestor before his time.

It’s hard to believe that someday I’ll be an ancestor.

Still trying to decorate my family tree.

There is strength in our roots.

When I was in grade school it was our practice to sell our text books back to the school at the end of the academic year. When I purchased my eighth grade history it was already a very used book. The year before someone failed to erase a message they’d scribbled on the inside front cover. It advised: “In the event of a flash flood — stand on this history book — IT’S DRY!”

That Wretched Family Tree . . .

There’s been a change in Grandma,
     we’ve noticed as of late
She’s always reading history,
     or jotting down some date.
She’s tracing back the family,
     we all have pedigrees.
Grandma’s got a hobby,
     she’s climbing Family Trees…

Poor Grandpa does the cooking,
     and now, or so he states,
He even has to wash the cups
     and the dinner plates.
Well, Grandma can’t be bothered,
     she’s busy as a bee,
Compiling genealogy for the Family Tree.

She has no time to babysit,
     the curtains are a fright.
No buttons left on Grandpa’s shirt,
     the flower bed’s a sight.
She’s given up her club work,
     the serials on TV,
The only thing she does nowadays
     is climb the Family Tree.

The mail is all for Grandma,
     it comes from near and far.
Last week she got the proof she needs
     to join the DAR.
A monumental project –
     to that we all agree,
A worthwhile avocation –
     to climb the Family Tree.

There were pioneers and patriots
     mixed with our kith and kin,
Who blazed the paths of wilderness
      and fought through thick and thin.
But none more staunch than Grandma,
     whose eyes light up with glee,
Each time she finds a missing branch
     for the Family Tree.

To some it’s just a hobby,
     to Grandma it’s much more.
She learns the joys and heartaches
     of those who went before.
They loved, they lost, they laughed, they wept
     – and now for you and me,
They live again, in spirit,
     around the Family Tree.

At last she’s nearly finished,
     and we are each exposed.
Life will be the same again,
     this we all suppose.
Grandma will cook and sew,
     serve crullers with our tea.
We’ll have her back, just as before
     that wretched Family Tree…

( Virginia Day McDonald, Macon GA )