The Storytellers (Family Genealogists) we are the called.
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 the 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 if 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 wept? I have lost count.
How many limes have I told the ancestors: “You have a wonderful family.
You would be proud of us?” How many limes 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 do 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, joy and grief, 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 the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us.

It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth. Without
them, we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can reach
that we might be born who we are, that we might remember them. So we do,
with love and 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 tile story
of my family. It is up to the next one called in the next generation to answer
the call and take my place in the long line of family storytellers.

Tom Dunn