We Are the Chosen 
Author Unknown

My feelings are in each family we are 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. To me, 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. 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 I am 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 they fought to make and keep us a Nation.  It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us, 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 them and they are us.

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 their 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 put flesh on the bones.

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DEAR ANCESTOR

Your tombstone stands among the rest; neglected and alone, 
The name and date are chiseled out on polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care, it is too late to mourn,
You did not know that I exist, you died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you in flesh, in blood, in bone,
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse, entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled one hundred years ago,
Spreads out among the ones you left, who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew,
That someday I would find this spot, and come to visit you.

Author Unknown.     

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If You Could See Your Ancestors
A Poem by Nellie Winslow Simmons Randall

If you could see your ancestors
All standing in a row,
Would you be proud of them or not?
Or don't you really know?
Some strange discoveries are made
In climbing family trees.
And some of them, you know,
Do not particularly please.

If you could see your ancestors
All standing in a row,
There might be some of them perhaps
You shouldn't care to know.
But here's another question
Which requires a different view -
If you could meet your ancestors
Would they be proud of you?