As I was setting up this blog site, coming up with a name was very easy. Genealogy is very much like a puzzle. Researching a family you never get the whole picture at once. As we look thru old family photos we get pieces. As we go thru the family bible we find names and dates--more pieces. As we begin go ask questions and interview family members--more pieces. As we begin to travel to cemteries, libraries, and court houses..there are several more pieces. Not until we sit down and begin to enter the information into our computer program of choice....not until we hunt down as much information as we can possibly cull from the census...not until we fill out the timeline of a family or begin to write their story do we have the full picture.
When my husband and I first started dating we would put puzzles together as funds we few. To this day at Thanksgiving or Christmas family get togethers someone usually breaks out a Charles Wysocki puzzle to start assembling. It's always a good way to get several family members around a table to start talking about memories and good times. Most times the puzzle isn't totally completed before everyone has to leave but the memories are and a new generation has learned that life can be fun without cell phones, I-Pods and video games.
For almost a year now I have been hunting down puzzle pieces, and very early on I realized I probably won't find all of them, and I won't be able to finish the big picture of the past, but that's ok. I just look at the picture of my family today and its wonderful.
KB
