anonymous

  As a person that has worked on the family tree for many years now, I often wonder to what end. It has certainly entertained me as I searched for answers. I was often surprised by what I did discover. There was certainly a lot of death involved! Why that surprised me I can't say exactly, I mean, I'm looking at ancestors. Should be quite obvious that they are deceased. Still, I did uncover a few that lived extraordinary long lives for the times. It has left me convinced that a long life is a matter of luck, or perhaps just destined. If you look at all the cases, the scenarios in life those ancestors faced, some surviving the most harrowing conditions while others succumb to the most mundane of things, you can reach no other conclusion. Mortality and immortality. The only question being how long is immortality? It appears to me that number is variable. Immortality is simply being remembered. Some will be remembered far longer than others no doubt about that. No one is immortal for eternity. In time, people forget.

  I have given some thought to what to do with the family tree beyond just leaving a chart of ancestors. In this digital age with all the available "cloud" storage it is possible to retain far more than their names. My tree contains hundreds of pictures and documents as well. I'm using Ancestry.com which I think is probably one of the more popular tools. It automatically creates a list of life events for the individual based on your input. It also provides some historical context for events. It is great if you are interested in a specific person but gets clumsy when dealing with a crowd. I've thought of attempting to compose a sort of historical overview of the entire family to leave as a sort of legacy. It's not as simple as it sounds though. I'm thinking I would have to do each individual family line as a separate story. It just gets confusing at times when you include in-laws, cousins and ex's. In my own family I have two half-siblings, although I hate that term as they are brothers to me in whole, not in part. So, it gets complicated when attempting to follow the line. 

  I have also considered telling the individual story of a specific ancestor as best as I could. Thing is I don't really have enough information to tell the story in any complete fashion at all. There is so much unknown information that can never be known or recovered. I can find some documentation for life events, but I can't know the emotion or motivation behind those events. I've often thought I would like to know why regarding a number of things. Why did my 2nd great grandfather join the union army for instance. Was it patriotism, a sense of duty or an obligation? Or was it simply everyone else was doing it and he felt pressured to do that. What were the thoughts of Great Grandmother Lester when her daughter passed away and she took on the responsibility of raising her children, one an infant? Lots of mysteries that will never be solved. 

  I don't know of any one individual in the family tree that would spark a great deal of interest. No one famous or notorious in my family. No one of great wealth or extreme poverty. There is no great tale to tell as far as I have been able to discern. All those ancestors have passed into eternity and my sense is, for the most part, forgotten. Their significance was during their lifetime, in death they lie in peace. I suppose that is where that saying originated, to lie in peace after having lived a full life. The mystery of how long that life will be remains just that, a mystery to this very day. It appears that my family has always just been a part of the masses, the common men and women that keep the world turning. The anonymous. Perhaps that is the story. A story beyond my ability to write. It doesn't seem like it would spark much interest. A story about the anonymous? But then again, if the story is written a certain degree of immortality will have been achieved. Discoveries are made in ancient writings.