I have to admit that I am always curious when I find one of these religious, literary, or fictional profiles, for in many cases, I think that they have been convoluted to the point that we could never know the truth. (And no, I am not in any way besmirching someone's beliefs. Please do not interpret it as that.) What these profiles do is help me see where gaps can be in my tree. They also make me smile.
I am not and do not pretend to be a genealogist, a scholar of historical personages or master of time. I only know a bit about what I have really pushed hard to uncover - mostly in the Southeastern United States. Thankfully, my Finnish relatives have really been working hard to uncover sources and stories for the thousands of profiles here on Geni.
I am not much of a tree builder, but I admire them. I am a "sourcer", I hope, and I like to come behind tree builders and find the rare gems like last night's 4 men - a father who suppled with Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox throughout the American Revolution and his 3 sons who served in the militia who had no sources about much of anything on their profiles. I grew up with descendants of these men and they never spoke of it. They probably did not know of their family or if they did it was as I told someone of mine, "just assumed" that they were patriots of the Revolution as their family had been there since dirt. There were no airs put on about it and instead they inherited a humility that we all need to remember as we hunt for the truth.
I hate finding tree matches that have been dumped with no locations and sources. Those with no locations should be banned. Just venting here as that is a problem with some of this.
I wish more people would worry about the quality of the profiles of their first 6 generations and then see what they can do out further to improve the tree. Maybe that is asking a lot, but I think it would help. That includes adding census data, children, death and burial dates along with stories, accomplishments or in the case of some - failures. We are a people of all of those manifestations. I wish I could BOLDFACE the word STORIES. We need to tell more of them about our relatives. I just told one on my 2x great uncle's profile about his love of sweet potatoes. Someone in my family needs to know that someday. :-)
Most of us have lost some or many to the global pandemic these past two years. I have documented many from the !918 pandemic and from COVID 19. The just over 100 year span has not escaped my attention and sadness of the impact. Sadly, some of us have lost others to cancer, dementia, accidents, and a variety of causes. It has not been easy to mourn them properly. I am really not worried about whether my lines are cut to David. But, I am glad we are able to have this discussion. I am glad that my mother was able to see pictures of her great grandparents thanks to the connections I made on Geni in Finland before she died in October. It gave us all some peace.
As we head into the New Year, I bid you peace and light; truth and patience; love and hope. Susanne
