What Matters Is The Stories!

"What matters is the Stories!" has become my new mantra.

And pictures, of course. Those are visual stories that also bring sparks of life to those endless names and dates in our family trees.

I have come to the conclusion that, no matter how much I want to *do everything*, that's not going to happen in this lifetime.

Time to prioritize. Time to focus on passing along the pieces that bring life and depth to these people. And that are *not* easily available at Ancestry or FamilySearch where I put all those names and dates.

I've been working on my adoptive lines for 30+ years. Oh, that tree is so far from perfect that it's a bit embarrassing....  I am so much better at hunting sources than I am at entering them. Ditto newspaper articles and other finds. But I have found so many stories, and photos!
And I've corresponded with distant cousins who had their own stories to add and photos to share.
I have pieces of information that, together, explain why an ancestor did something.
That last is a big kind of story!
And I have so many relatives that I want to share all this with!

Then my maternal half-sister found me, and DNA testing became possible, and I have been *So Focused* on tracking down our biological lines, and biological fathers.... That's mostly where I need to be. We both have kids, grandkids, a great-grand. For the family history of *them*, our DNA and what we can find there is the key to their history!

So I have to be *done* with researching my adoptive lines. But I am far from done with wanting to bring those real people to life! I also know that, as much as I will try to get many of those pieces into FamilySearch Memories, I will not get to them all. Not even close.

One cousin said to me that she got a pedigree chart years back from someone else, but once she had got beyond the people she knew, it was all names and dates....
That's the reality, and it is where things often just stop.

It's past time to get these things written out, and sent to cousins. And printed out and mailed to those that are not on the net.

If all they do is stick the stories in their box with family photos, that will be far better than nothing. And *nothing* is where things stand now.