Family Traditions-What are yours?

What sort of information is important to collect on our ancestors?  There are the obvious items such as birth/death certificates, obituaries, marriage certificates, baptismal records, etc.  But did you know that collecting family traditions might be important too?  

We've all heard an elderly family member say, "We are descended from... Danish nobility, a notorious criminal, an Indian Princess."  It's really a fill in the blank situation.  Or do you have a family tradition of looking for the pickle on the Christmas tree?  Don't dismiss your family traditions out of hand.  You may not be descended from Danish nobility, but perhaps a member of Danish nobility stayed in a inn run by your ancestors or an ancestor might have known a notorious criminal in their childhood. 

Many times family legends are loosely based in some fact.  And holiday traditions such as looking for the pickle on the Christmas tree come from ancestor's home lands.  Looking for the pickle on the tree is a tradition even today in most German households.  Just remember that the "fun" parts of our history makes the hard work worthwhile.

GM

Sonrise; A God Given Gift

There are many ways to celebrate Easter; boiled eggs covered in dye and stickers may be one of them but for us here at Artistic Ancestry it is a time to celebrate the rise of our Resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ.

Genealogy, or family history, is tied into the Savior's love for us in our minds because when we link all our families together and follow them back generation after generation they will all eventually lead back to our beginnings.

Many people mistakenly think January first is the day for renewing our resolves to be and do better, but in my humble opinion that day should be reserved for Easter and I hope you will resolve to work harder to pull your families together into one continuous thread back to the beginnings of time, or at least as far back as people kept records!

So, Happy Easter! Whether you are a Christian or not strengthen your resolve to build a family foundation of genealogy that will give your children and their children the knowledge that they belong to something bigger than themselves. Bigger, Brighter and Blessed.

A Genealogist's Prayer

Lord, help me dig into the past
And sift the sands of time
That I might find the roots that made
This family tree of mine.

Lord, help me trace the ancient roads
On which my fathers trod,
And led them through so many lands
To find our present sod.

Lord, help me find an ancient book
Or dusty manuscript,
That's safely hidden now away
In some forgotten crypt.

Lord, let it bridge the gap that haunts
My soul when I can't find,
The missing link between some name
That ends the same as mine.

Author Anonymous

How did your ancestors survive? Grub soup?

With all the opportunities we have in life, a lot of what our ancestors did to survive is lost on us.  Most of us have never had to hunt just to eat nor have we had to work hard to make sure we had grains and fruits and vegetables stored enough for the winter.  But there has been an increase of Young Adults, who may not want to live that lifestyle again, but they do want to know the skills their ancestors had.  

In Bayou Country, many members of the younger generation learning how to feed their families by going hunting for alligators and frogs.  More and more young adults are growing gardens and learning how to can what isn't immediately eaten.  Learning the life skills our ancestors held will give us a greater understanding of who they were.