The History of a Family

The “funeral” I attended this last weekend wasn’t a traditional one.  It was in my uncle’s yard.  There was a barbecue and there were a lot of mosquitoes to contend with.  There was nothing religious going on, no formal service at all; people spoke, but mostly spontaneously, and mostly just about their happy memories of my grandmother.

I mingled a little, but spent most of my time there sitting with my siblings and my cousin looking through stacks and stacks of photo albums.

I love photos.  In the days of film, I would always develop my pictures as the rolls were used up on my vacations rather than wait until I was home.  I can spend hours and hours putting together my photo albums and looking through them.

The Family Trees of the Future

In almost every family, there seems to be at least one person who is really interested in the family tree, looking up ancestors from wherever and putting together charts and so on.  I think the internet has probably been an amazing boon to these people.  Myself, as far as family history goes, I am interested in the people that there are photos of.  If you’re going into pre-photograph times (unless you can dig up some portraits, I suppose), I find it pretty hard to feel connected to that history.