It's not that she didn't try to tell me our stories, all my life; all these stories I want to know. And it's not that she didn't go through her photo albums with me at least 10 times.

Its just that I didn't listen hard. And I didn't listen because I didn't care hard, the way I care now.

Young people don't care about olden days---they don't have enough memories yet, they are still busy building moments.

(Older people are busy re-building moments they wish they better noticed in the first place.)

One of the curiosities about Family Genealogy (after you learn to spell it) is that you often have to know where your ancestors lived and even where they went to church.  And you just don't know, which makes you feel all the more desperate to find them.

Another thing about Family Genealogy:

If you take on both sides of your family and both sides of their family...all their children and their children's children on both sides of every family... at one point you will start to understand that we are related to about 50% of the people on the planet.

And a third simple fact about genealogy:

Nobody cares anything about your ancestors except you.

I began to tell my family who they are. I told them that our ancestors were 44 and 46 when they took 4 children to America in 1872.

I told them Ellis Island wasn't even built yet; they likely stopped at Castle Garden.

I told them Aunt Dorothy said that Great Grandpa was a bricklayer and never farmed a day in his life before he got his homestead in Wisconsin.

Aunt Dorothy said a highlight in their lives was the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago, when Grandpa rode the biggest Ferris Wheel in the world.

She said that Grandpa was the finest old man who ever lived, rocked their cradles singing Danish war songs, could yodel, and stood on his head at eighty.

Then, I start to tell them about the Fowlers. Moms father's family came from West Virginia to Wisconsin in a covered wagon with 7 kids.  Their eyes are glazing over.

And here is the last thing everybody should remember about Family Genealogy:

Even your own family, who loves your family as much as you do, may politely hide their yawns while you tell them who they are.  Then one day, they will yearn to know.  They will start on the journey and wonder of discovery all by themselves and wish they could share it with you.

Keep talking and write it down.

Love,

Your Family Historian