This is by its very nature a work in progress, but thanks to my niece Alicia Milburn, 
who did an enormous amount of the initial research, it's not quite the huge job it 
could have been. While I continue to gather some more of the nuts that fell from our 
family tree, here are some notable quotes about family and history that explain the 
need for tracing our family histories:
but please sign my guestbook to let me know you were here 
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For the healthy growth of any tree we need to know where its roots lie ~ Karyn

History remembers only the celebrated, genealogy remembers them all ~ Laurence Overmire

You Will Know The Tree By The Fruit It Bears and in our case the family bore an 
enormous crop of nuts  ~ Karyn

We are who we are because they were who they were!

Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, 
present and future ~ Heidi Swapp 

In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage - to know who we are 
and where we came from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. 
No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the 
most disquieting loneliness ~ Alex Haley 

How will our children know who they are if they do not know where they came from. 

In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future 
~ Alex Haley 

Generations pass like leaves fall from our family tree. Each season new life blossoms 
and grows benefiting from the strength and experience of those who went before 
~ Heidi Swapp

Genealogy, n. An account of one's descent from an ancestor who did not particularly 
care to trace his own ~ Ambrose Bierce

If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and 
tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families 
and makes each of us who we are ~ Madeleine L'Engle

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family
Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.
~ Jane Howard

If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all 
generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in 
your body. You are the continuation of each of these people ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors ~Jonas Salk

To forget one's ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root ~ 
Chinese Proverb

We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors' wisdom ~ Maya 
Angelou

In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were 
seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, - seven or eight ancestors at least, 
and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is 
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson






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May the roots of your family tree grow deep and strong