The Story Tellers – Across Generations



(1 Nov 2012)  – Somewhere in my Heart I heard the echoes of my Family calling me across the generations.  In June 2009, I answered the call by beginning to research my Family History.  When I began, I did not know even the birth locations or birth dates of my parents.  The names of my grandparents were just "Grandpa" and "Granny" and I knew only that they were older than my parents.  The names of my great grandparents were unknown to me as were many Uncles and Aunts and Cousins.  The Story of my Family was never told in my hearing, so I began my genealogy research with meager details and without any experience with internet search, genealogy programs, or genealogical research techniques.  Humble beginnings for sure!

 

Within six months, I had purchased a computer, printer, and scanner, subscribed to www.Ancestry.com, joined a genealogy club, attended several family research seminars, and contacted some of the few older Family members that were known to me.  As my experience increased and Family details became known, my postings on my Ancestry Tree grew.  As of this date, on our Ancestry Tree there are over 50,000 postings of Family members, documents, census records, birth and death records, marriage and divorce records, land records, lots of photos, and many Family and Historical Stories.  Whew!  So did I answer the 'call' or what ? !

 

In 2012, I joined the Findagrave Organization and have the honor of being the creator and maintainer of several Findagrave Online Memorials.  This is a wonderful group of people that volunteer freely giving their time and Heart, using their private individual funds to travel and to research the graves in cemeteries in the USA, and posting their findings online on www.findagrave.com with photos of grave markers and cemeteries, and short bio and orbits of those who have found their rest.  I have found so many of my Family Members, now passed away, online in the Findagrave Memorials.  My Family Members are at their rest in locations where I cannot visit to pay my respects in person, but thanks to Findagrave, I can visit the graves online and leave a 'word and flowers in remembrance' on their Findagrave Memorial.  A SPECIAL THANK YOU to all the Findagrave volunteers for the research, travel, photos, and posting these memorials for my Family on Findagrave.  It is so much appreciated!!!

   

For me, the Journey into Family History has been full of surprises, joy, and tears.  There is a feeling of being 'connected' to the Family when I learn the Story of each Family Member, that seems not to diminish, even when the Story is ferreted from sources on the internet, genealogical societies, county records, legal documents, military records, and historical resources.

 

LOVE my Family Tree and all the Tangled Branches!

 

LOVE Family Research!

 

(Dorothy Hazel Tarr)

My FINDAGRAVE profile--
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=mr&MRid=47776571

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Below is something I found on the internet that seems to describe my feelings about my Family, both those that have come and gone before me, those who are here today, and the generations to come.  It touched my Heart and I hope it touches yours! (dht)



[Photo Source: Google online images "family tree in hand"]



[Photo Source: Google online images "a tear"]

 

"The Story Tellers ... We are the Chosen" 

We are the 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 facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before.  We are the Storytellers of the tribe.  All tribes have one.  We have been called, as it were, by our genes.  Those who have gone before cry out to us, "Tell our Story."  So, we do. 

 

In finding them, we somehow find ourselves.  How many graves have I stood before now and cried?  I have lost count.  How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us."  How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow, there was love there for me?  I cannot say.

 

It goes beyond just documenting facts. 

 

It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do. 

 

It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying, "I can't let this happen."  The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. 

 

It goes to doing something about it. 

 

It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish.  How they contributed to what we are today. 

 

It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their Family. 

 

It goes to deep pride that they fought and some died to make and keep us a Nation. 

 

It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth.

 

It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they all were doing it for us, that we might be born who we are, that we might remember them.  So, we do.    

 

Without any of them, we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach.
    

With love, caring, and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. 

 

So, as a scribe called, I tell the Story of my Family.  It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of Family Storytellers. 

 

That is why I do my Family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those who we had never known before and put flesh on the bones. 

By Della M. Cummings Wright; rewritten by her granddaughter Dell Jo Ann McGinnis Johnson; Edited and Reworded by Tom Dunn, 1943."  (Transcribed by Dorothy Hazel Tarr.)

 

[Photo Source: Google online images]

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