“Pointless but very much on purpose.”
Source: Pointless
“Gilbert Guttlebocker particularly enjoyed narratives that were so fantastic that they could not be believed without suspending one’s understanding of reality, such as that tall tale of the tiny little invisible thing that nearly blew up the whole world, commonly known as the Manhattan Project; or the strange story in which a man who had been dead for three whole days raised himself to life again, often called The Gospel; or that farcical legend in which liberal casino-owner Donald Trump became the arch-conservative president of the United States, also known as American History. You see, Gilbert, like many children his age, had such a powerful imagination that he actually believed these absurd narratives to be factual, and he longed for the day when he could be involved in a story equally beyond belief.”
Source: Gilbert Guttlebocker, Defender of Dragons
“We are just stars in our family's constellation”
“Knowing your generational story firms the ground upon which you stand. It makes your life, your struggles and triumphs, bigger than your lone existence. It connects you to a grand plotline.”
Source: Just as I Am
“Genealogists: they're just grad students without the Pell Grant funding or a degree waiting for them at the end.”
Source: Shaking the Family Tree: Blue Bloods, Black Sheep, and Other Obsessions of an Accidental Genealogist
“The sacrifice our ancestors gave yesterday
Gave us today and our tomorrow”
Source: Selina's Letter, Tales of Suicide from Victorian and Edwardian London
“My charge, then, in putting down my pen, and giving over this work to posterity, is this: Take the time. Take the time to preserve the stories, the photographs, the small mementos that mean so much. This is your legacy to future generations. Give it the attention it deserves. Your children and your grandchildren will thank you for it.”
Source: One Immigrant's Legacy: The Overmyer Family in America, 1751-2009: A Biographical Record of Revolutionary War Veteran Capt. John George Overmire and His Descendants
“Just like our ancestors, we too will fall out of living memory and be forgotten.
It will take a future genealogist to find us again.
Make it a good find.”
“She listens to the history of her painting read aloud in court and finds it hard to associate her portrait, the little painting that has hung serenely on her bedroom wall, with such trauma, such globally significant events.”
Source: The Last Letter from Your Lover
“Ultimately, the great truths of family history don't live in any book. They live in the hearts and minds of the living descendants. They live in the way we conduct our lives, in the passing of traditions and values to those who will follow.”
Source: A Revolutionary American Family: The McDonalds of Somerset County, New Jersey