52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Well, this is it! I'm jumping into blogging feet first by accepting a challenge proposed by Amy Johnson Crow on her genealogy blog, No Story Too Small . The challenge?

"Write once a week about a specific ancestor, whether a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem- anything that focuses on that one ancestor."

Every family seems to have a self-appointed chronicler: the person who collects the stories and photos from our collective past and makes them available to the rest of the family. I have been immersed in the collecting and assembling part of genealogy for most of my adult life, and along the way have "met" some pretty fascinating people and "heard" some amazing stories. But, what to do with that information? How do I tell these stories to others in the family so that they, too, can get to know those who combine to make us who we are? They are more than names and dates on a page or tombstone, or worse, not remembered at all. 

I have two special influences that immediately come to mind in my choice of subjects for blogs to come. The first is my grandmother, Eva Jane. From her I got my love of family and interest in genealogy. The second is my late Uncle Bill Foote. He was a long-time English professor who read my story on our Trueblood family and encouraged me to write more. 

In the weeks to come, I hope to introduce you to some of these people and stories. May you, too, come to appreciate the joys, struggles, disappointments and love each of them must have felt as they lived their lives.