Gratitude

I think of myself as generally a grateful person. I'm richly blessed in so very many ways and I know it. At this season when gratitude and thankfulness are uppermost in our minds, I thought I would note some of the genealogy blessings for which I'm so very grateful.

The old family photographs I have aren't the best or the most beautiful. I don't have stunning images of individuals and families, but I'm ever so grateful to have the ones I do have. To be able to put a face to a name is beyond joyful!

It is a pure blessing that technology has made available newspapers in digital format. An even greater blessing is the technology that allows us to perform word searches of newspapers on the internet. Except for obituaries, how else could we begin to know where to look for the briefest of articles about our ancestors? How exciting it was to find a short article about my ggrandfather, Henry, who grew a very large vegetable. Thrilling to find the article - wonderful to have it! I'm grateful.

The technology that gives me a genealogy program to manage and store all the information I collect about my relatives is wonderful. So is having a computer on which to save letters and images. Blessings!

I feel blessed to have older relatives who have so willingly shared - and continue to share - their memories of our common relatives who passed away before I knew them.

It is wonderful to have a brain that still works well enough to have childhood memories of grandparents and other relatives. I count that a blessing.

I'm thankful that my daughters are interested in learning about their ancestors and share my joy when I share with them what I've found.

I'm grateful for the written family records and documents that have come my way. Few are originals, but even to have photocopies or digital images I consider a blessing.

I'm thankful for libraries, archives, and courthouses where records and documents, books and catalogues are available for perusal and copies.

Microfilm is becoming old technology but still, I'm grateful to be able to access newspapers and other documents in that way until they become available digitally.

I'm grateful to the people from years gone by who were so forward-thinking, who realized how important it would be to save and preserve all the pieces of paper that documented a person's life - newspapers, deeds, birth and death records, certificates....

It's a blessing to know that Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, love my ancestors as much as They love me.

I'm grateful for the internet which allows me to share information and photographs in the form of a blog so that other family members can learn more about our mutual ancestors.

It's a wonderful blessing that cemeteries keep good records - and allow us to have copies of them; that churches keep histories - and they're available to us. Blessings!

This is a wonderful time to live when genealogy is our interest! My heart abounds in gratitude!