If you are like us, navigating this past year has required imagination.  We have assembled a lot of jigsaw puzzles, watched hours of Netflix, caught up on our reading, and enjoyed day trips to lovely and interesting areas around North Texas.

One activity that has really captivated us, though, has been the exploration of our family trees.  An ancestry.com account has proven to be a worthwhile investment, for it has allowed us to unearth old and obscure pieces of family history, and bring renewed focus to many vaguely remembered people and events.

Fortunately, we possess a number of family genealogical documents, written records and even an oral recording of my beloved grandmother relating stories that would otherwise be unknown.   When we were able to add the trove of information from ancestry.com … photos … immigration records … grave registries … the results were fascinating.

As strong supporters of our military, we are pleased to report that men – and women – in our family have served honorably in every conflict since the Revolutionary War; sadly, some were lost in battle.  And sprinkled, liberally, among our forebears are postmasters, judges, educators, clergy and politicians.

I would like to be able to report that our ancestors descended directly and unblemished from royalty, but, unfortunately, such is not the case.  Like many families, there are a few individuals whose names, understandably, do not come up at family reunions.  And for those rascals who thought their misdeeds would remain forever hidden, well, ancestry.com and the Internet have lifted the veil. 

For as someone once said: Every family tree produces some lemons, some nuts and a few bad apples.