She was a beautiful, young Irish maid, working in a wealthy English household. Her employer’s oldest son fell in love with her. When he announced intentions to marry her, his parents said they would disown him. He married her anyway. Then, bride and groom ran away to live happily ever after. “Her name was Mary Cordial,” my maternal grandmother Marilyn Matilda Dietz told me, that distinct glimmer of pleasure in her eyes—the one she always had when she retold this story. “And you are her legacy.”

This blog is a resource for those who want to--have to--find out more about who they came from.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Full Color Historical Documents

These are the first few lines of an email I received a few days ago:

A Birth Certificate shows that we were born.
A Death Certificate shows that we died.
Pictures show that we lived!

You probably have several albums filled with photographs. Are they labeled?
If not, a hundred years from now some descendents will be looking at your photos, scratching their heads. Who's this? I don't know. Someone's mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, grandmother, grandfather... I wish we knew.

Your photographs are not only mementos of good times you've had. They're historical documents. Set aside some time this weekend to write the names and relationships of the people pictured down on the back of each photograph. I can guarantee your great-great-granddaughter will be grateful for it and thrilled to have a certain picture of you. Believe me--I've been there.