Ancestors Found

One Must Begin

After my mother died in May of 2010, I coped in various ways.  I survived by eating peanut butter wafer cookies.  I started pulling out all of the old 35mm slides from my mother’s sewing room.  I learned to scan them, and organize them, and tag them. I got better at it.  I found her father’s even older slides in my father’s little den.  I scanned some more and got better still.  I saw pictures of my self as a child that I had never seen before.  I saw pictures of my mother from when she was an only child.  I reviewed my parents’ wedding, and saw myself and my sister on camping trips. I found portraits of relatives I had known when I was very young, and photographs of people I could not recall. Some pictures made me happy and some made me nervous, but they all resonated with me and informed the year of my loss. The pictures made me want to read my mother’s short autobiography, and return to the genealogies of my grandmother. And so I dug up the notes and the binders and the printed genealogies.  I added genealogy software to my computer.  I started finding The Ancestors.  I visualized where they had lived, how they got to America, and what their lives were like.  Now I must know them as best I can, and keep up the good work.