Genealogy is the farm boy hopping home on one foot from a distant hay field, with a pitch fork jammed through his other foot. Genealogy is an aunt giving her nephew his first haircut, without his mother's permission. It is a widowed mother of five children working as a waitress in a desperate struggle for survival. Genealogy is the grandfather who rode with a lynch mob because his wife said if he didn't go, she would. The vigilantes broke a man out of jail and hanged him for the rape and murder of a girl on her way to Sunday school.
Genealogy is the drama of ordinary people doing ordinary and extraordinary things.
It's the story of our ancestors and living relatives. Just like history at school, dates are important. Vital statistics delineate our lives. Birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, all are important, but they merely identify. They are the skeletons of our heritage.