It's about lives, not names and dates

As I've mentioned genealogy is my favorite hobby, my favorite obsession.  This was instilled in me as a child when my mother or grandmother would open up this vast handwritten chart that had names and dates going back ten generations.  This seemed impressive to me as a youngster, and I knew "where we came from."  As an adult, I began tracing my father's side of the family and the fun began.  Why?  The detective work, pure and simple.  I love this stuff. Once I began gathering not just names and dates, but actual stories about people, about the land they lived on and the times they lived in,  I was really hooked.  It made me go back to those names and dates on my mother's side and dig further. Really, who were they? For the most part, I'll never really know the full stories of those who came before, but  occasionally some story got put down for posterity and I feel privileged to find it and make it part of my own.  So here are some of my favorites.