Dear Brian,

I want to add my heartfelt thanks to the many people you have helped with your wonderful indexes and look ups. Where would we be without you?
I recently came across the below when browsing the 'Net and it can all be ascribed to you. So thank you.

Why do we research our Family History?

We are the chosen. My feeling is that 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 those
who went before know and approve. To me, doing genealogy is not a cold
gathering of 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 in 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 cried? I have lost count. How many times have I
told my ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us."?
How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love
there for me? I cannot say.

It goes beyond just documenting the facts. It goes to who I am, and
why 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, 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
they fought to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense
understanding that they were doing it for us, 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 them and they are us. I tell the story of my family. It is up to
that one called in the next generation, to answer the call and take their
place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family
genealogy, and that is what call those, young and old, to step up and put
flesh on the bones