#52Ancestors, Week 47, Thankful

Thankful was the topic for the week of Thanksgiving. In recent years we have been trying to take the time and celebrate along with our US based cousins and friends. A little mindfulness and taking the time to reflect on our lives and be grateful for what we have, never hurt anyone. This year though, that went out the window as we were in the midst of a heatwave and cooking in a hot kitchen was the last thing anyone wanted to do.

But genealogy-wise what am I thankful for ?

I’m thankful that the majority of my ancestors have been able to lead full rewarding lives and that they appear to have been in control of their destinies. Choosing to emigrate and give their children opportunities in new lands which were not available to them had they remained in England.

I’m thankful too that this emigration happened relatively recently and that records have mostly survived and begun to be digitised. How tricky to need to go back 5 or 9 generations before your family was based in Europe or Britain when records were much more sketchy. I would love to be able to find the links for those DNA matches. But, I appreciate that for most of them their really distant pre-immigration history is completely unknown, and truly is in the “too hard basket”.

I’m thankful that my Dad started this journey and inspired me to join in. Also that we seem to come from a line of curious thinkers, were there is an abundance of other curious souls, 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th cousins who are sharing the journey now too.