...WHAT I WANT...

1. I want ancestors with names like Rudimentary Montagnard or Melchizenick von Steubenhoffmannschild; not William Brown or John Hunter or Mary Abbott.

2. I want ancestors who read and wrote voluminously, who purchased land and who left detailed wills (naming a huge extended family as legatees), who had their photographs taken once a year, and who subsequently put said pictures in elaborate glass frames annotated with calligraphic inscriptions.

3. I want ancestors who married and had their children baptized in recognized houses of worship which kept and preserved their records meticulously.

4. I want relatives who managed to bury their predecessors in established, still-extant (and indexed) cemeteries, and who carved voluble and informative inscriptions in their headstones.

5. I want family members who wrote memoirs, who enlisted in the military as officers, and who served in strategically important (and well documented) skirmishes.

6. I want relatives who `religiously´ wrote in the family Bible, journaling every little event and detailing the familial relationship of every visitor.

7. In the case of immigrant progenitors, I want them to have arrived only in those years wherein passenger lists were indexed by National Archives, and I want them to have applied for citizenship, and to have done so only in those jurisdictions which have since established indices.

9. I want forebears who were wealthy enough to afford, and to keep for generations, the tribal homestead, and who left all the aforementioned pictures, bibles, diaries and journals intact in the library.

10. But most of all, I want relatives I can FIND!!!

The Census Taker

It was the first day of census, and all through the land each pollster was ready ... a black book in hand.

He mounted his horse for a long dusty ride, his book and some quills were tucked close by his side.

A long winding ride down a road barely there, toward the smell of fresh bread wafting, up through the air.

The woman was tired, with lines on her face and wisps of brown hair she tucked back into place.

She gave him some water ... as they sat at the table and she answered his questions ... the best she was able.

He asked her of children... Yes, she had quite a few -- the oldest was twenty, the youngest, not two.

She held up a toddler with cheeks round and red; his sister, she whispered, was napping in bed.

She noted each person who lived there with pride, and she felt the faint stirrings of the wee one inside.

He noted the sex, the color, the age... the marks from the quill soon filled up the page.

At the number of children, she nodded her head and saw her lips quiver for the three that were dead.

The places of birth she "never forgot" ...was it Quebec?...or Vermont?...or New York...or not?

They came from France, of that she was clear, but she wasn't quite sure just how long they'd been here.

They spoke of employment, of schooling and such, they could read some ... and write some ... though really not much.

When the questions were answered, his job there was done so he mounted his horse and he rode toward the sun.

We can almost imagine his voice loud and clear

"MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALL FOR ANOTHER TEN YEARS".


Now picture a time warp ... its' now you and me

As we search for the people on our family tree.

We squint at the census and scroll down so slow as we search for that entry from long, long ago.

Could they only imagine on that long ago day that the entries they made would affect us this way?

If they knew would they wonder at the yearning we feel and the searching that makes them so increasingly real.

We can hear if we listen to the words they impart through their blood in our veins and their voice in our heart.