"Family History: Are there any 'bones' in it?" (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking Series) Afternoon All... I heard an interesting story recently. It was told to make another point completely, but it is actually also a very good way to make sense of why many of us simply cannot stick to simply names, dates and facts in our genealogical searches, and search so for the stories that "flesh it all out". It seems a little boy was very afraid of storms, and each night that one occurred, his father would find the boy standing by his parents' bedside, wanting a little comfort, a little assurance...and to climb into bed with some warm bodies. One night a storm was particularly horrific, and the accompanying crashes of thunder resounded through the house. It came as no surprise when dad looked up to see a small pale face beside the bed, eyes anxious and wide with pleading. After some deliberation, dad finally got the boy to go back to bed, telling him all would be well, his folks were in the next room, and that if the boy held his teddy bear very tightly it would be morning before he knew it and the sun would be shining. Next morning at breakfast, dad leaned over to the small boy seated at the table beside him. "How did the teddy bear work?", he asked. "Well", replied the boy, his small face very serious, "It worked ok....but really....it would feel better if I could hold onto something with bones in it!" I think that holds true for a lot of things. A teddy bear is a fine thing, comforting and warm and nice to have in one's possession. A documented family tree is also a fine thing, secure and interesting and understandably the time it takes to research one a thing of which to feel justifiably proud. But names, dates, facts are simply that. If that is all our research is about, we really have "left the bones out of it". We have not had that moment of understanding how the events and personalities of another age have influenced our own, and what we have come to be. We have not grasped the significance of recognizing how patterns of both successes and failures within a family repeat themselves, and how understanding those, we can choose to proliferate them or end them. We have not understood how history can suddenly jump from the dry pages of a textbook and hit us with all of its rich significance until we have understood from a family's personal place in it why and how history actually evolved. Without "bones" our research is not much more than a dry list of itemized facts with little meaning for anyone save the person who has collected it, and that meaning devoid of anything richly layered and textured with all of the lessons and nuances of appreciation a family history can unfold. The "bones" of a family tree are not always found in legal documents, or indeed in any documents at all. They are not always found in indisputable sources. They are found more by reading what is not written than what is. They are found by looking at what no longer exists as much as by studying what does. They are found by listening and more than that...hearing what is not said as well as what is. They are found by looking at a curiosity in a family while stepping into the time period in which the curiosity happened. They are found by paying attention to times and places and legends passed among people. The "bones" of a family can't be disinterred until the reason for digging up bones is recognized. just a thought, jan