When it comes to genealogy you are lucky if you have one person in the family doing it. The others are not interested or do not want to do the work; I guess it helps if you have a love for wanting to knowing more about your family history. My brothers and sisters have no interest in our family history except my oldest sister. I have a niece and great niece that are interested in genealogy so it should keep going in my family for a while. One brother is amazed at some of the things I find he will say, “Where did you find that” and I say you just have to know where to look. It does not bother me that they are not interested in what I am doing because I know a day will come that they will be happy to have this information.
Because others have helped me in my research I am happy to help others get started. One of my friends did not know anything back before his father but now he can go back three more generations. This is a good foundation for him to have as he works his way back. My other friend is pleased to have me help him on his tree as his family has a history in operating sawmills in the 1800’s. I told him if he really wants to make his family happy is to write down his early years so they will have it when he is gone. I told him they would be very happy to have this. I am trying to get my neighbor to write about her early family. She has told me some interesting stories about her family in the mid to late eighteen hundreds in Presque Isle, Maine. I told her even if her children are not interested I would love to have this information.
Of all the work I have done in genealogy the family book I put together I am most proud of. I did not think I had the skills to put a book together but with some help from my niece we finished it in two years. Most people who put a family book together do it by their self but mine was different. I got my mother, brothers, sisters, several nieces and nephews to send me something. I asked them to write about what it was like growing up. This book covers five generations and one hundred years of family history and stories that has 120 pages. Having old photos of my parents and grandparents added a lot to the story. When everyone wrote their story I put a picture of them when they were young to go along with it. When I started I had no clue as to what the book would look like but I must say I am very happy with the results. I made 14 copies one for each that contributed.
The reason I put this book together was to honor my parents, I wanted the grandchildren yet to come to know about their grandparents. I am starting to see my brothers and sisters sitting down with their grandchildren telling them what it was like when they were young and who their grandparents were. This all started with an idea that came to me back in the winter of 2002, I am very pleased that it has worked out so well.
Respectfully submitted, Orlan Smith
Vice President’s Message, July 2013 by Heather Feuerhelm is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at ac-gs.org.