We create a memorial, but it truly isn't ours to own. These memorials are for the living, the family, and to honor the dead. Some act like they are things to collect with how high they can get their number. There's no reward in that. What we preserve is history – someone else's family tree as well as our own.

I have been honored in the past to be given transfers of my relatives. I was so grateful and so appreciative of the individuals that created each one. I would just encourage anyone who has taken the time to do this to remember the blessing of helping someone else.

I am happy to transfer to family members or close friends when asked, unless it's my relative :) I believe ALL family members should be transferred, no matter the line!

Dear Ancestor

"Your tombstone stands among the rest

Neglected and alone

The name and date are chiseled out

On polished marble stone

It reaches out to all who care

It is too late to mourn

You did not know that I exist

You died and I was born

Yet each of us are cells of you

In flesh and blood and bone

Our blood contracts and beats a pulse

Entirely not our own

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled

One hundred years ago

Spreads out among the ones you left

Who would have loved you so

I wonder how you lived and loved

I wonder if you knew

That someday I would find this spot

And come to visit you."

-Walter Butler Palmer (1906)

My Family:

Chiricosta

Giannelli

LaVerde

Peters

Kloepfer

Klemm

Haag

Spellman

McGrath

....and more