Family History

As you may know, I am not the average teenager who spends their time engulfed in the latest music and gossip among other things. I do one thing though that many teenagers don’t really care much about. My family tree.

I started becoming interested in sixth grade when my history teacher assigned us to writ a brief little life story about someone interesting in our family. The teacher also said we could ask our grandparents, so I found that this was a perfect time to hear another story from my grandmother. She had told me about her Native American grandmother who had many many children and lived a life to the fullest and many people appreciated all the things she did.

I found this interesting and thought to ask my grandmother other stories about older relatives and we both together thought of the idea to start our family tree. Originally we had some incorrect information and a small little tree. I could tell that there was some work to be done.

As I researched and looked up new things I found it fun to see records, names, birthdates, and death dates for old ancestors. At this point I have traced back my ancestry to the 1600’s in some parts. When you really think about it, you think of the value of life.

I’ve probably gone back to my 16th great grandparent or more at some point. If that grandparent wasn’t born, a mass of people would not be here on earth. The farther back it goes back, the more important they were. I find it so fascinating to know that all these people lived and had children, just so I could be born. They keep having children, who keep having children, who keep having children. It’s an ongoing cycle and I would not be here without it.

If you believe in creationism, as I do, we are all related. The two main parents had children and all the way down the line is you, the current generation.

How could you live to not know who these people were? You really do have so much to thank for being here. That’s why I do not understand suicide and not having children. But that is a totally different subject for a totally different time.

I am a bunch of heritages because I come from such a variety of them. I am Scottish, Irish, French, French-Canadian, German, Native American and more that I do not know.

If you don’t know your past generations I really do recommend that you do because without knowing who they are you don’t know where you came from. These people all probably didn’t think about having so many descendants but it’s almost like a legacy to pass down.

Michael Crichton said it best in this quote:
“If you don't know your family's history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.”