On The Trail of Yesterday by Dick Dornisch Reprinted with the permission of the author. I have sometimes remarked to people involved in historical preservation that the reality of their voluntary efforts in this area is that they are, at the bottom line, the custodians of a community or county's junk. This might seem a bit harsh, but as with most things of subjective value, one man's trash is very frequently another man's treasure and this is certainly true in regard to museums, historical institutions and even archival depositories. Nevertheless, the pursuit of the past is an intriguing pastime, broadening, enlightening, frequently elevating, occasionally shocking and nearly always interesting. It has the quality of sometimes becoming obsessive, particularly with people who become innocently involved on the fringes of genealogy, and soon find themselves being pulled into an ever broadening morass of cousins, grand nieces and great, great uncles ten times removed. Among the academics, history is frequently disparaged as a study with little real value, but that can hardly be said by anyone who has ever paid much attention to it. Wiser men have said that unless we study history, we are bound to repeat the mistakes of the past. That seems a bit too philosophical for most of our purposes. I prefer to think of history as being chiefly valuable because it helps us understanding who we are. It assists us in the knowledge of how we got our own ancestry and the ancestry of those dear to us. It is also true when we attempt to understand the political, religious, commercial and industrial history of the places we live. In the "Endeavor" circulation area there are a minimum of ten county or municipal historical societies and genealogical associations. All of them are dependent on volunteer help, endowments, grants, and donations and even more importantly they are dependent on the communities' recognition that the only things such organizations have available for research, study, viewing and enjoying are the things they have collected. The files that contain those indenture documents, Baptismal certificates, discharge papers, land exchanges, and all such other archival literature exist only because people have given such things to the societies rather than throwing them in the dumpster. All the fading and yellowed old photos that are so prominently displayed in the rooms, the display cases of rusted and well worn tools, treasured old toys, tarnished old kitchen utensils can only have gotten there by one route. Someone had to realize their possible value and gave them to the organizations. I would like to suggest today that everyone who reads this, acquaint themselves with their historical or genealogical society. It is fun and the people contributing their time in these places delight in nothing so much as assisting newcomers in their searches and interests and involving them in the unending search for a better understanding of our past. As we delve ever deeper into our own past, the everyday and mundane suddenly becomes a part of a great and grand adventure story, of immigrants and weeks in steerage, of conscriptions and smoky battlefields, of epidemics and labor violence, famine, tragedy, triumph, hardship, of endurance, of pirates and prostitutes. But that is the personal subjective approach. May I also suggest another, a more objective connection. Resolve to place some of your own family photos and documents in your municipal or county society archives and when family members die, don't throw those old packets of curling brittle photos and faded documents away. Give them to the folks that work and clip and file in the society rooms near you and let them decide if what you might have considered to be trash just might, in reality, be a treasure, another of the aides that take us along the trail of yesterday. Mike Wennin Come Visit the Cameron County Genealogy Project! http://www.rootsweb.com/~pacamero