Welcome to The Briercliffe Society Forum

Taken from LFHHS yahoo forum, not sure of I have put it in the right place but it is well worth a read.

"We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems 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.

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.
All tribes have one. 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 am I 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 the fathers fought, and some died, to make and keep us a nation.
It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us.

It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth,
without them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we
can reach. 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 they and they are the sum of who we are.

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 my 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 restore the
memory or greet those who we had never known before."

Author: Unknown

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Gloria

I'd be dangerous with a brain.

Wow! That says it all, and so beautifully.
Being the one of family historians always puts me in mind of a young girl in the film Mad MAx- Beyond the Thunderdome. She was the one whose job it was to keep recounting the history to keep it alive.
Either that, or I'm one of those wrinkled old crones who used to sit round camp fires, casting bones and reciting the tribal legends.

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Maureen
If you can't fight, wear a big 'at

So very true.

For me, it all started when I was told that my maternal grandmother was not from Stoke on Trent (but from Burnley) - the place that has always been my home. I think I was told before her demise but it never really registered. How I wish it had. I'm sure she would get a thrill out of my pursuits and frequent trips to Briercliffe.

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Mel

Searching for lost relatives? Win the Lottery!