This is not something that bothered me before until my son asked me why I don’t make one for our family. It caused me to wonder why that would be important but when thinking about it the reality hit home. My children need to know who their ancestors are and what they contributed to their present life. It meant putting myself back into the past and ever since that day it has reared its head over and again.
Looking back into my reasonably long life the task is daunting. My grandparents, which are now their great-grandparents, along with their siblings, cousins, and others helped to make a huge family when we were growing up. Aunts and uncles came to stay, we visited many of them, and others turned up unexpectedly and were always welcome.
Who they are, however, and what role they play in the family tree is long forgotten. Now it will take a large effort to piece it together. This is probably something I should have done years ago when more of them were alive. The question now is whether or not its too late and how important it is to my children?
The first place to start is the family album and there are the people who were mostly around in my youth. There is also ancestry.com where my eldest daughter recently went over the family history. The job is not that daunting when it is still in my memory but if left now who after me will be able to do it?
As my son reminded me they need to know who they are and where they came from. That makes it very important.
