by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
I don’t mean to belittle the accomplishments of those whose names we memorize for tests and whose statues we admire. I just think it’s time to make a little room for the rest of our ancestors — and I’m happy to report that this is already happening. You never had to be famous, rich, or educated to leave a trace, but unless you were, you tended to be overlooked. But now, that’s all beginning to change, and at the vanguard of this democratization of history is the humble genealogist.
~ Megan Smolenyak
(Hey, America, Your Roots Are Showing)
A delightful pairing!
Thank you, Laurie!
Oh that painting is lovely.
I’m glad you liked it, Sybil!
Ya ya, makes sense. The discovery of the ancestors that belonged, created and contributed to our mankind is great. Well explained in the note, oh and look at the painting! wow!! Thanks much for this one. Have a nice day, Barbara 🙂
I hope you’re having a wonderful day, Sonali! Sometimes people think genealogists are snobs looking for famous and illustrious ancestors. But most of us have very humble origins and I think the stories we uncover about ordinary people are in many ways the more interesting ones! 🙂
Love the painting – it looks like a photo.
Add my yeses to the quote. There’s so much I’d like to know about my ancestors – I don’t even have a recipe! Do you?
I’m happy to know you agree with Megan Smolenyak’s sentiments, Rosie. Her book was a lively and engaging read. I have a lemon pudding cake recipe from my maternal grandmother, which I always requested for my birthday cake. And my paternal ancestors were Ukrainian so my aunts have given me recipes for borscht, galumpkis and varenyky… I bet you could do some research and find recipes for the dishes your ancestors were probably eating. 🙂
Such a lovely, cherubic painting!
This is an interesting quote. The names of history are surrounded by the nameless – to recognize them would bring a fuller understanding of times so distant as to be almost unimaginable.
Thank you, Aubrey! I am amazed how genealogists keep finding new record sources which shed more light on the lives of ordinary folks living ages ago – not everything “lost” to history remains lost. And then we have DNA testing, which connects us to ancestors we never dreamed could be on our trees!
I believe I became a humble genealogist myself when I discovered the internet Barbara, and what a world it has opened to me! The wonderful families of peasants past, as shown in the painting, are definitely something to somebody, and should never be overlooked. 🙂
The internet is such an amazing tool, connecting us to kindred spirits around the world in our time, and also connecting us to myriads of unknown ancestors from the past. It’s been said that every person is or was the most important person in the world to someone, reason enough to include everyone! 🙂
Hi Barbara. I have so little from my own past, but gradually, I am assembling ideas of who some of them were. We would probably be surprised if we knew how much of ourselves is a glimpse of our ancestors’ lives. Jane
I often wonder about the little quirks we all possess – if some of them came down to us genetically or by example. 🙂 It takes time but it’s fun to make new discoveries, even if they inevitably lead to more searching – always that urge to go back another generation!
Wonderful pairing, as always, Barbara. I like the quote, and the idea that now the ordinary folks will be remembered in some way as well. 🙂
Thank you, Robin! 🙂 For some reason your comment made me think of music my dad was fond of listening to, Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.
Thank you so much! What a wonderful painting.