Ancestors

Ancestors.  We all have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents, and 32 great great great grandparents and so on back.   I exist only because all these people came together in particular ways.  Who were they? What were their lives?  How hard did my great great great grandparents work to sustain the lives of my great great grandparents?  That work led to the creation of me.

All that went into the creation of me.  I feel some responsibility to carry with me and pass on who my ancestors were, what they believed in.  I feel that responsibility, and yet, I don't have the knowledge to do it.  I do actually know about 2 of my great great great grandparents.  When one of them died another one, his widow, wrote his biography.  But I don't know about the other 30.

There are some things I could learn by searching for stories and records.  But there is so much that is just gone -- no record left of what they thought, how they felt, what they did.