The Trail To My Roots

I come from a sturdy lot of people. People not afraid of who they are, or where they have been. Not wealthy people, by any standard, but hard working folks. Some would call them "hillbillies", some would call them the "salt of the earth".
Me? I simply call them mine.
I began looking with very little to go on. I knew my great grandparent's names on my father's side and it turned out they were only nicknames...as was the case, often, in rural areas. Names were used and handed down generation after generation until they became more of an endearment than the original name. This searching has become my passion. I am addicted to finding more information about them, who they really were; how they lived, how they loved, and how they died.
The search to know them has been a rewarding one. My search seems to be smiled on by the angels, because I have found whatever I was searching for, fairly easily.
Angels or not, I'd like to think that I am being smiled down on.
Every one of those that have come before me, have left a tiny speck of themselves in me. I want to know each and every one.
Maybe I will find a little more of myself along the way....

I cannot begin to tell you what it has meant to me, to stand at the grave of my fourth great-grand parents. To know they have walked that very same path before. To run my fingers through the grooves that the engraver made, forever etching their names in the stone. I wonder sometimes if I am alone as I visit, or is there a whisper of them in the rustle of the leaves in the trees?

Go ahead, call me a romantic sap. I thrill to the hunt. And the finding, well that is just the icing on the cake. It leaves me with a big smile and a tad emotional.
This is who I am, who I came from, and without them, I would not be here.
For that, I am more than grateful.

If you haven't sought out your ancestors..maybe it is time you did.