Gratitude day #17
Today I am grateful for my ancestors, and for what I have learned of their lives through genealogy.
My parents were the ones who whetted my appetite in learning of my family's history. I was born into an old family, and heard firsthand of the early lives of my grandparents, all born in the 1880s and 1890s.
I touched their hands! Their hands had touched those who were born in the 1820s and 1830s! I have touched history.
I have researched their lives, I have learned of their struggles and successes, I have read of the abject poverty they were living in years after their service in the Revolutionary War as they tried to recount their military days to receive a pension.
I've seen them on the move in their migration. I don't move around much, and the thought of packing up and crossing into the unknown overwhelms me.
I've seen them bury child after child after child; parents whose feelings would have been no different than ours as we stood at our son's graveside.
I have photos of many of them. I have looked into their eyes. I can almost feel them looking into mine.
I often wonder if they are wagging their head as I am trying to trace their history; wondering if they feel like saying to me, "Peggy, you're looking in the wrong place. Go back and look at my pedigree again, and get it right this time!"
I'm grateful I have gotten to know these many generations of loved ones who went through what they did to give me what I enjoy today. Whose characters were firm and strong, and their integrity solid.
I hope that when I meet them, they won't be strangers to me. I know their stories, and hope to hear about some of the stories I'm not aware of.
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