May 13, 1993
By Isabel Morse Maresh
I am putting together a family history for my heirs. This one is not like the typical family genealogy but is a narrative of each generation's lives, complete with pictures. Some people are not so lucky to have pictures of their ancestors, but visiting relatives and digging into the past proves that more pictures were taken in the late 1800s and early century than was previously supposed. Many families had the familiar black-box camera which took amazingly clear photos. If you are fortunate enough to have access to a collection of old black negatives, they reproduce to make excellent copies. Many family members will let you make copies of family photos.
Some of our family lines are extremely difficult to follow through the past, especially in local towns where records have burned or have been lost by town clerks. As these people aged or passed on, the records were forgotten in a trunk in the attic. Some were taken out of the state by migrating descendants, others stored in barns or similar places, but seldom do they ever come back to a town office or historical society to be copied or preserved.
There are some fascinating family tales to be told. The one regret that I hear from everyone doing research is that they hadn't started when mother, father, or grandparents were able to tell them the tales of the past. I, too, am an example of that. How well I remember spending hours with my younger cousin. While her mother, my aunt, cooked, sewed, or other daily chores, she told us stories of being raised by her grandmother, of life at home at the turn of the century. WE merrily played on the bed or the floor nearby, depending upon how cold it was, and only half listened. Today, I look back and realize that she was telling us of her youth, and the grandmother that she affectionately called "Gram" Morse was my great-grandmother. Once again the quote, "It's a shame youth is wasted on the young" comes to mind. Alas, lack. Those are words my aunt used as well as "Hark!" when she wanted us to quiet down.
The tales of yore were told to me by my father in later years, often as we were riding. Id' try to remember them long enough to jot down a note, such as "Jose Hobbs told me that Mr. Brown's wife [of Lincolnville Centre] was a cousin to my mother, Jennie Levenseller." I searched the records but I don't know which Mr. Brown he meant. Another note said, "Uncle Ed Levenseller said when he was here from the state of Washington that the Scruntons were cousins to him."
The most priceless stories are the ones that you don't know how to record because of the quality of them. I've read and preserved the obituaries which noted, "She was a kind and loving mother, beloved by all." I've never read, "She neglected to sweep her floor because she preferred to do other things," or "She was a vixen who pilfered all the family belongings."
I believe that a person makes their name in this world and that God is the final judge. But wouldn't it help our ego some if we could tell the truth? Maybe you can do that in a personal family history. Let life speak for itself.
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