Tree Apples

I have been doing some family tree research of late and I have to say, I admire those folks who put so much time and effort into compiling their family's history because it is a lot of work. I have spent hours in the last few days looking at family trees in search of connections. Connections that take me back centuries, into places I can only imagine and while the journey is sometimes tedious it is always one in which I lose myself. Time seems to stand still when I am clicking on tree after tree, hint after hint in search of another interesting tidbit of family history. And to think, the time spent is measured in nano seconds because we have the almost instant results of the internet. Gone are the days of spending weeks, months and even years waiting for the smallest pieces of information to fill in the branches of a family tree. The detective in me finds it fun to ferret out the who's who of our families.

In my latest foray into the back stories of our (spouse and mine) extended family I found that I am related to Daniel Boone. Yes, that Daniel Boone. Oh, I know, many are numbered in that relationship -- I've read of gigantic Boone Family reunions with thousands of attendees -- so my discovery is not a terribly big one. I do feel just the littlest bit special and when I told my husband of my venerable family connection, the pronouncement was met by a skeptical look and an "Oh, yeah." which lacked, too much, enthusiasm. But, like I told him, there were fewer people on the continent at the time and it was a small place. Really, it was. The settlers who had made the perilous journey to the shores of the North American Continent were concentrated in few places in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Settlement of the vast middle of the continent was still a thing of the future save for a very few brave and possibly foolish white men. I figure the chances of being related to those who, early on, made a name for themselves -- good or evil -- are relatively high if you have ancestors who were among some of the earlier settlers. Besides, families tended to be rather large, with lots of siblings to go on to parent their own rather large families thus making the possibility that our family hangs out in the same tree more likely.

History. That's what it is all about, history. One of my favorite subjects and that of my undergraduate degree. Without history we suffer ignorance and a lack of illumination in our lives. With history we can stumble into the future generations with surer footing than without. With history we can see the mistakes of the past and try to prevent them replaying. With history humans should be able to make reasoned decisions and judgments today and tomorrow -- if they do and will is entirely up to them. But, it can be argued that without history humans could create, free of previously proven impossibilities new innovations. Without history humans might . . . Naw! Wouldn't work unless our memories were wiped clean after every thought and then nothing would get done so it is all about history.