The theme for the first week is foundations. It could be interpreted in many ways. I chose to look at the foundation of my family ancestry journey. When I was young it was very easy to know that I was part of a much bigger picture. There are eight children in my family, we had cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents who visited at various times. Occasionally we would go on trips to visit them as well but with a family our size for the most part they traveled to us.
When my husband and I married we moved far enough away with his job that it wasn’t always easy to return for family gatherings. As we started our own family it became a little more difficult to pack up and go, and the winter weather usually didn’t help. Our daughter loved being part of a big family and she relished those trips for Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas with grandma and grandpa. We had state magnets for each state we visited stuck to our refrigerator. Our son tried to rearrange the magnets so our family was closer because by this time we had family from Washington D.C. to Hawaii. (Wish it was that easy)
My children inspired me to start learning more about our families and write it down for them to share with their own families one day. It was a very slow start to the journey while they were still young. I have plenty of time now and am having fun learning the stories of my family. The photo at the top is my grandmother, her parents and grandparents and aunts, uncles and cousins. My grandmother Nettie Myrtle Smith was born in 1893 in Franklin, NE. She is the girl sitting across the table. Her father, Charles William Smith(1860-1936), and grandfather, Ira Smith(1831-1920), had a furniture store. Her mom, Melissa Alice Minson (1863-1932) and her grandmother, Anna Slater (1839-1913) probably worked for hours to make all the food for this dinner. This photo reminds me a great deal of when I was young and we had everyone over for Christmas dinner. The biggest difference is we had multiple tables in multiple rooms.
My Tree in the Forest 