Home » History » North American Genealogy » Putting Flesh on the Bones

Putting Flesh on the Bones

© Mark W. Swarthout

You've worked for years tracking down the names and the dates. There are stacks of birth certificates, Social Security Applications and death notices. You've ruined three pairs of shoes tramping though grave yards and licked hundreds of stamps and envelopes.

Indeed, the family tree prints out onto 180 sheets of paper and covers the entire wall of the den when you piece it all together. But, as impressive as it looks, it just isn't enough. What about all these names? Are they just names and dates filled into slots or do they seem like real people to you?

Relating a family tree to someone else is pretty much a non-event. The most common question I get is, "How far back have you gone?" Those not in the family have little interest in seeing a list of your ancestors cascading backwards through time. But if you have stories to tell about those same people, it becomes interesting!

By putting flesh on the bones of your family, you can tie yourself into the very fabric of history. It's a lot easier to get your children interested in the Civil War if you can show a family member was a part of it. The founder of Rhode Island is certainly not exciting, unless Roger Williams happens to be an ancestor.

How do you make them come alive? The purpose of this topic is to provide you help in tracking down the information that can make the letters and numbers become a real person, someone you can picture in your mind. Yes, that person might be a scoundrel, or they may be a hero. They may just be an ordinary person, living a life without any special significance other than without them, you wouldn't be here. And even if you can't conjure up a picture of the individual, you can certainly picture the town or village they lived in, and imagine what life was like at that point in history.

I highly recommend that you also visit Christine Seivers' Genealogy topic at http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/gene... for keys on filling in the family tree. And Deanna Corbeil has excellent articles on being a Family Historian at http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/7338

And by knowing more about your ancestors, you greatly increase the possibilities of finding additional information about them. By being more aware of their context in both a geographical and historical sense, you will often find additional information that really makes them real. The 2000 Swarthout Family Reunion (including Swartwout, Swartout and Swartwood!) was held in Geneva, New York. (If you are interested in the family, visit my web site at http://www.swarthoutfamily.org/index.html ). One reason I arranged to go was that it was just a few miles from where my father was born and his ancestors resided for many years. The feeling I got having actually seen the grave stones of my ancestors, rather than just reading the inscriptions published in the book, can't be accurately described.

The copyright of the article Putting Flesh on the Bones in North American Genealogy is owned by Mark W. Swarthout. Permission to republish Putting Flesh on the Bones in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.