I See Dead People

(singing)
Genealogy I am doing it, my genealogy. And the reasons why am doing it are very clear to me. I will keep my book of remembrance, I'll write my history. It's a record of my family, my genealogy.

I have been working on my family's history for a year now and I have been loving every minute of it. It started out as a fun-thing-to-do while Ian was at 11 year old scouts, now it has become a passion. I work for an hour and a half once a week at the Family History Center and then for an hour on Sunday at home. I have always had a love for old things....old photos, documents, artifacts and stories. I started this love when I was very young child. I adored the family stories my father would tell to me and would beg for more. At the age of 11 I would dig "out the old box of photos" my mother's parents had hidden under their bed and would look at each and every one until I had faces memorized. I would drag the box down stairs and ask my grandfather, "Who is this?" He would tell me and I would memorize it. I was always grateful my grandfather was a patient man, because there were HUNDREDS of photos in that box and we went through all of them. I would bring down that box once a week and ask for stories of people in the pictures. I have hundreds of facts stored in my brain about these wonderful people. My mother's parents were not the only ones that I begged to tell me stories. My father's family also had old pictures. I stumbled upon these one day while I was poking around in their living room. I remember getting SO excited that there were photos that I could look at. I really do not remember asking if I could rifle through all of their photos...I just did it. I would ask my grandmother as she would walk by, "Who is this?" My grandmother would tell me and then I would ask her another question, "What was she/he like?" I do not know what my grandmother thought about me asking her questions, but she never stopped telling me about the people in the photos. I think it is funny that EVERY time I went to her house I pulled out that drawer and look and memorized faces. Someone asked me once why I liked photos and why I looked at the faces so closely and I remember telling them, "because I do not want to forget what they look like." I still wonder if they thought I was a nut case.
When I started to do my genealogy last year I just put down every name I could remember from when I was a child. Then the next week I would go to the computer and look up the persons death and birth dates. Then I would check the Churches websites to see if everything matched up. Lots of names did...lots did not. If there were errors I would go back to researching. I made lots of phone calls to my parents for information that I couldn't remember or was too young to ask about. Something amazing happened to me while I was working. I felt close to the person who's name I was working on. I found myself talking to them (in my head) wanting to know why I couldn't find them on the computer? I felt deeply troubled if a name did not match up to what I had. I know these people were real and that they needed to be found and written down. I feel very strongly about this. I love doing family history and I know that I will never stop...no matter how frustrated I become. I love family.