My current project/focus on FAG is linking family members' memorials together. I have discovered that a lot of FAG subscribers do not create memorials for genealogy purposes. Unfortunately, it is merely a "numbers game" for them; creating memorials for the sake of "managing" a vast amount. *I do commend some subscribers for taking on the painstakingly time consuming task of creating memorials from cemetery records, however there are numerous subscribers who hoard their memorials and refuse to transfer any of them, even when a gracious request is submitted.

On that note, if I manage a memorial, who is your relative, even if they are a genealogical distant one, I have no problem with transferring it.

Most of the memorials, which I manage, are not my descendants. They are usually ones which I have come across while researching and I notice that none of their family members, who are buried in the same plot, are not linked together. It is my genuine desire to provide their living relatives with as much information as possible, with the hopes of these living relatives desiring to manage their memorials. - March 2025

~THE STORY TELLERS~

We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors – to put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.

To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before.

We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one.

We have been called by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us: tell our story. So we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors you have a wonderful family you would be proud of us? How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me?

I cannot say.

It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation.

It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us. So, as a scribe is called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers.

That is why I do genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones. - Della M. Cummings Wright