Look forward but keep marching.

We are the family historians, by choice or by default.  Ours is the task to ferret out our ancestors and tell their stories. 

How will we accomplish this vast assignment? 

The Genealogy Community will help!  Continue to reach out for the "breaking news" of family history.  You can use this news to lift you up when you are discouraged. 

The news will also stir your concerns and prick your conscience and you may have to save a cemetery or preserve a record that is about to be discarded; you may have to mingle with bureaucrats and lobbyists, with agents of governments small and large--the destruction of our history, of our family's history may be in peril.

We have talked of bloggers in genealogy.  Share your stories, help your neighbor, or write a blog for your family members or others.  Read the blogs of Dick Eastman and others.  Let them know you are interested in our future, our present, and our past as it pertains to growing and knowing our family tree and the family tree of mankind.  The concept is that once you realize you are related to your neighbor, town folk, etc., you will treat each other more kindly.  We will treat each other like family members ought to be treated. 

Now, before I get too carried away:

Those of you who have put your family tree on FamilySearch.org have an opportunity to participate in Relative Finder in conjunction with the other members of this class.  This isn't a closed group, but it's a seed that will be allowed to sprout.  It will stir your imagination and inspire you to get busy, stay involved and continue to gather not just facts about your kin, but also learn about their culture, their time, their challenges and their joys.  If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't be here.

Again, I digress!

I have formed a group, with the help of Marvin Cochrane and Ed Pfeiffer and of course, my sorta sidekick, Val Moreland.  This group is called CLL Genealogists.  This group is represented at Relative Finder, online.  If, and/or when you put your ancestral tree on FamilySearch, you can join this group.  The results will be posted for you to see who and how you are related to each other and to famous or notable people.  You may personally invite other genealogists to join, in your family, or whatnot.  You can form your own family group, you can form a church group, or whatever.  The invitational url will be posted today in class.  We will not invite the internet to join because I manage this group and I don't want to have to work too hard!  Talk to you later, friends.  E-mail me if you forget or lose the invite URL.  Oh, and there is a password, also.  I want this group to be meaningful to you, or relative as they say.