Family History....It's About Love

Dina from SheDraws Near has agreed to guest post for us again. Dina loves family, adventuring, family history and is currently working on an #organize365project where she is posting on Instagram each day her progress with organizing pretty much everything! We are happy that she is joining us once again. Thanks Dina!

     I love memories of sitting on the Lake with my family and all of my cousins, uncles, aunts & my grandparents.  We would float and sing, laugh and tell stories, and the adults would say, “I remember when…!”

     My grandpa Hoagy was an avid genealogist and he would tell us all of the connections he’d found in his research.  This was back before the ease of a home computer that revolutionized genealogy research.  He had boxes full of papers, proof, photocopies, family tree sheets, family group sheets; I mean loads of boxes overflowing.  Some of it was interesting but most of it seemed tedious to a 12 year old that just wanted to go water skiing. 

     As a girl in love with the water, it was painful to have to listen and I dreaded it.  I’d even ask things like, “Why does Hoagy always have to talk about family history work?” and “It’s so boring, how long do I have to sit here and listen?”

     He’s moved his work station up to Heaven now and I’m WAY older than 12.  Oh how I long for the days to sit at his feet and hear him tell those stories one more time.  He instilled in me a love of Family History work.    

     I am seriously in love with everything about it.  I love hunting for documents.  I love hunting for people to connect them to someone.  Everybody wants to be connected to their family and it brings me great joy to find connections. I love helping other people with their family history.  This may seem weird but as I assist others with their connections, it draws me into their family tree and I become grafted in as a member of their family.  I seriously have one huge family, mine and theirs, and I truly believe that’s what we all are; One Huge Family.  Even you and I are connected to each other. You are my sister, my brother…we are ALL connected.  We are children of the same God and that makes us family.

     I have come to learn that the “I remember when’s” matter.  It is so important to capture and keep all of these stories.  I am compelled to write my memories down.  I carry index cards everywhere I go and when a memory floods my thoughts, I write it down.  We all have this happen.  We can smell something and it reminds us how our Grandma Dot smelled as you sat across from her playing Scrabble.  Or we hear a song and it reminds us when we were on a long road trip with our Aunt Jana and she was teaching us camp songs as we traveled.  Stories are embedded into our brains and when they surface it’s up to us to capture them before they go back into hiding.  Scoop them up and give them life on a piece of paper to be read and remembered more easily.

     My challenge to you is start somewhere, even if it’s a post it and a pen or if you talk into your phone and record the memory so you can type it up later.  If your grandparents, aunts, uncles cousins, mom, dad, siblings are close, sit at their feet and hear them.  Better yet…sit at their feet, hear them and RECORD every story they want to tell you.  Our phones make it so easy to actually capture their tone, their spark, their joy in the story they love to share. Fall in Love with your family all over again because Family…It’s about Love!