I would like to welcome everyone and urge you to contibute as much information 
as possible for our family site.  E-mail me with any information, or 
corrections, you would like added and I'll make sure it's included.

I started doing Our Trees so that I could help preserve our family history for 
Bobby, Misty and Billy. That was six or seven years ago. Since then I have 
found relatives in California and as far away as Austrailia. These relatives 
have provided a lot of insite and help in opening new doors that I was unable 
to find. 

I want to extend my utmost gratitude to Robert Thomas who lives in California. 
His unlimited knowledge in the area of Geneology has helped further my quest 
on more than one occasion and he still keeps the information coming. 

Again, welcome to OUR website. Let's travel back into history together and 
visit with those who came before us.

Love to all,

Mary Ann

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    We are the chosen. In each family there is one who
seems called to find the ancestors.To put flesh on their bones
and make them live again,to tell the family story and to feel that
somehow they know and approve.
    Doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but,instead,
breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers
of the tribe.All tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by
our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us:Tell our story.
    So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves
have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times
have I told the ancestors,"You have a wonderful family; you would be
proud of us."  How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt
somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say.
    It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why
do I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost
forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this happen.
    The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to
doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were
able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today.  It goes to
respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving
up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.
    It goes to deep pride that the fathers fought and some died to make and 
keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were 
doing it for us. It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to 
give us birth, without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far
back as we can reach.  That we might be born who we are. That we might 
remember 
them. So we do.With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence,
because we are they and they are the sum of who we are. So, as a scribe 
called, 
I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next 
generation to answer the call and take my place in the long line of family 
storytellers.
    That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those
young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those whom we had 
never known before. (unknown author){contibuted by Zdzslaw A. Derwinski}
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