MY FAMILY TREE IS DRIVING ME NUTS

Not the members on the tree [especially not the mothers] but the process of developing it. A couple of aunts and uncles, my brother, some in-laws and cousins had all started recording various family members – which was very commendable. But somehow they thought it would be nice to share all this with me.

So I took all of this information and started to compile it in one place. I found a user-friendly genealogy program, and began entering the data. It was quite fun to see all the ancestors’ histories and read their stories.

The thought has always amazed me is that I’m alive today. When one considers that if a great-great-great-great grandfather or grandmother had not lived long enough to have children – “POOF” – I’d be gone! In fact, I’d have never been born!  Somehow God kept my forebears alive and forbearing children.

This is true for each of us, of course. Since we are living, God must have wanted us to be born. And He loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives.

But, back to the tree. I figured it would take a few weeks to get everyone’s information loaded, which was almost true. I discovered pretty quickly that there were missing links in the family.  [Not the evolutionary kind – since that’s a myth.] But there were spouses, children, siblings, in-laws, divorced husbands or wives, step families, third and fourth cousins removed several times, and on and on and on…

So after months, not weeks, I’m up to 513 members of the tree, and I’m still adding to it. There seems to be no end to all the relationships. Thus the ensuing insanity I’m experiencing.

I may not live long enough to complete the entire family tree, and I now understand why this was passed on to me. Now, if I can only find a younger branch that I can send all this to so they can have as much fun as I’ve been having…

This was posted by Carl E. Gustafson in The-Review – Alliance OH on 05/18/17.