Now that you have been filling in your pedigree chart - did you notice that there are no uncles, aunts or cousins on the chart? There are only parents, grand parents, and great grands, all of whom are your direct line - bone of bone, flesh of your flesh. They were the ones who made you what you are - your bone structure- your physical and mental characteristics - color of hair and eyes - your sanguine or morose disposition - you talents, your peculiarities -

Did you note that there are in the fifth generation exactly the number of ancestors as there are in the first four generations?

Suppose you trace all your ancestors back to 1600 or before [with accuracy!!! and no ±, abts, cia.] - you would have over 1024! Suppose you could go back to Shakespeare's time, you would have 32,368 ancestors. Suppose you could go back to Chaucer's time, you'd have 1,020,976 ancestors accounted for.

It staggers the imagination in mathematical problems. Suppose we take only the 30 ancestors you have in your five generation chart, and figure out just how much each one of them is responsible for making you what you are. Each of those people represent 3.3% of the responsibility for your makeup. The great surprise is that your father and your mother each contributed only their 3.3% share of what you are!!! Their combined contribution of 6.6% would leave a balance of 93.4% which your grand parents and all those great grands put into your genes. They are part of you.

Once a couple were protesting their son's proposed marriage to a curvaceous little tramp whose parents were notoriously immoral. The son angrily examined, "But Dad, I'm not going to marry her parents." To which the father wisely replied, "son, I have news for you. you are not only marrying her parents - you are marrying her ancestors clear back to Adam."

The saddest thing or part of an undertaking in tracing one's ancestry, is the awareness of how many cousins there are unknown to us, and may of them hungering to know more of their family heritage. This is to say that we have come full circle - back to our purpose in the beginning, that is to build a good foundation upon which future searchers may build.

Family history is a never ending thing. As long as life goes on there will be the need for people who care enough about family to take the trouble and time to keep records of what they know, and to help other cousins to find out what they do not know.

We strive to be accurate in our data, but when we find unverifiable data or learn that county and family records do not agree, however family bibles and cemetery records tell a different story, we are often frustrated and disappointed. Only after further research and study do we achieve some consensus of past history when it was not recorded properly in the first place. As long as you live, see that your family record is kept, but your responsibility does not end there. You should see to it that there is some younger member of the family who will keep the record when you are gone.