Queens,
princesses, duchesses, and other female royalty around the world are often
fascinating to us. For example, Meghan Markle became known as Duchess of Sussex
when she married Prince Harry. Since then, we seem to pay special attention to
the royals especially of the United Kingdom. Probably, a large part of that is because
the Duchess is an American-born woman and is not yet a British citizen as there
are many requirements for that to happen and it’s a slow process.
We
could think about our own heritage and look back into our ancestry to see where
we came from and the history of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents
and on and on. We may be surprised or shocked to find out some fascinating
facts, especially if we never knew anyone on one side of our family tree or the
other.
A few
years ago, my own family tree expanded by a tremendous explosion! Since my
biological father passed away during the WWII era, his history was never exposed
to me. But suddenly, after being contacted by a supposed first cousin (later
verified, of course), twenty-one first cousins were discovered on my father’s family
tree that was never known to me previously. To shorten this long story, there
was an immediate family reunion that happily lasted for days. And my Google
contact list has grown into a garden of delight!
Generations
of History
Many
people already know their family history, but maybe not. Or not well. It could
be great fun to start this project and with so many websites out there to
support a search, it isn’t difficult. How many generations back could we discover?
Where are our ancestors from? What did they do for a living? And how did our
families eventually end up in America where we were born?
These answers
could not only be fun to discover but may be quite important to pass on to our
children or siblings. It was sad for me to find out there were all these
cousins I could have grown up with if only I had known of their existence. Instead,
decades melted away with no contact. Don’t let that happen to your family.
Just
like the old famous song by Louis Armstrong says, “What a Wonderful World”
this could be if we only allow it. And knowing our history is all part of the
process to keep it going. Some of us have boxes and boxes of photos lying around
the house (yes, millennials, before the 1980s we had photo film that needed to
be developed which created a “hard copy” photo to keep). Okay, we were smiling
when we said that, so relax, we know it is a digital world now. In fact, we can
even take those hard copies and have them turned into a digital video or file
folder to keep forever.
Five
Keepsakes to Start
What
other things can we do to create family keepsakes to pass on? Try these five
and then add your own:
 |
| A journal for each child |
Child’s growth chart
(enlarged) for the wall
Fill a shadow box with
old keepsakes from the attic or closet
Start a journal for
each child (even grown ones!). Write a weekly letter
Frame that handwritten
family recipe from great-grandmother
Create framed pencil/watercolor
drawings of the kids
Delicate
Parts
After
all that activity, be sure to sit and relax and read the one book that contains
hundreds of fascinating family stories like a courageous woman named Esther who
became a Queen, a female judge named Deborah, and a daughter and beloved mother-in-law
named Ruth and Naomi.
It’s
one way we will find out that we ourselves were created with loving care and
not by accident, but with a purpose. Open the Bible and start with Psalm 139. In
verse 13 it says gently, “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and
knit me together in my mother’s womb.” It is so important to see that God, the
Creator of all knew each one of us long before we were even born.
It’s
our original family history written by our Heavenly Father and the one and only
true God who created the entire universe!
“. . .Who
knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” (Esther
4:14b NLT).
