About The Way We Were
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I am Bonnie Tougas Andrian, daughter of Homer Edward Tougas and Jacqualine Eslaine leMercier duQuesnay. I am the granddaughter of Homer Albert Tougas and Florence Edith Brake, and Oscar Vincent leMercier duQuesnay and Elbert Hypatia Perkins.
Borrowed from Bay Of Islands Genealogy Society
The Story Tellers:
We are the chosen ones.
My feelings are, in each family, there is one who is summoned to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.
To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before us. We are the story tellers of the tribe. We have been called as it were by our genes.
Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story.
So, we do.
In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors "You have a wonderful family, you would be proud of us?" How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say.
It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am and why I do the things I do? It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this be, the bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it.
It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.
It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us that we might be born who we are. That we shall remember them.
So we do.
With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are us. For we without them, cannot be.
So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation, to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers.
That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.
By: Della M. Cummings Wright - Re-written by her Granddaughter, Della JoAnn McGinnis Johnson - Edited and reworded By: Tom Dunn – Edited and reworded by: Alexander (Sandy) Payne.
"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth." Voltaire (1694-1778)
There is an ancient Indian saying~ Something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it.~ I don't want to be that last person. For that reason, I feel such an urgency to put what I know somewhere where it can be seen by all. I have been researching our family tree for more years than I can remember. I dedicate this family history to my Dad and Mom, who started it all for me, and to my beautiful daughter Lenae in hopes that someone after me will want to know where they came from and will continue the search to open the mysteries of our family.
*** ~ *** STRANGERS IN THE BOX *** ~ ***
Come, look with me inside this drawer,
In this box I've often seen,
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, serene.
I wish I knew the people,
These strangers in the box,
Their names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.
I wonder what their lives were like.
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times?
I'll never know their ways.
If only someone had taken time
To tell who, what, where, when,
These faces of my heritage
Would come to life again.
Could this become the fate
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday to be tossed away?
Make time to save your pictures,
Seize the opportunity when it knocks,
Or someday you and yours could be
The strangers in the box.
To my Ancestors
Your tombstone stands among the rest; neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out of polished marbled stone. It reaches out to all who care, it is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist; you died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you in flesh, in blood, in bones. Our blood contracts and beats a pulse entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestors, the place you filled some hundred years ago. Spreads out among the ones you left who would have loved you so.
I wonder as you lived, I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot and come to visit you.
DISCLAIMER:
I am very happy and willing to discuss and share our lineage with anyone, as long as it is understood that there could be some errors. Even though I have done everything possible to check my sources and verify the data contained, I cannot guarantee that it is completely free from error. If you see something that needs to be corrected or if you would like to add any information, please contact me. Information is constantly being added and updated, so please check back often.
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Getting Around There are several ways to browse the family tree. The Tree View graphically shows the relationship of selected person to their kin. The Family View shows the person you have selected in the center, with his/her photo on the left and notes on the right. Above are the father and mother and below are the children. The Ancestor Chart shows the person you have selected in the left, with the photograph above and children below. On the right are the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. The Descendant Chart shows the person you have selected in the left, with the photograph and parents below. On the right are the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Do you know who your second cousins are? Try the Kinship Relationships Tool. Your site can generate various Reports for each name in your family tree. You can select a name from the list on the top-right menu bar.
In addition to the charts and reports you have Photo Albums, the Events list and the Relationships tool. Family photographs are organized in the Photo Index. Each Album's photographs are accompanied by a caption. To enlarge a photograph just click on it. Keep up with the family birthdays and anniversaries in the Events list. Birthdays and Anniversaries of living persons are listed by month. Want to know how you are related to anybody ? Check out the Relationships tool. |
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