I know, it’s been a while since I actually wrote a post for 52 Ancestors (in fairness, it’s been a while since I wrote a post at all), but I was having a thorough muse on this week’s theme and thinking about ancestral stories to share.

And then had a bit of a realisation …

The entire point of what I do – of what you do, of what we all do – as genealogists, as family historians, as archivists is to ensure that our family stories aren’t forgotten.

Yes, you can break it down into specific ancestors, or finding forgotten children who were born and died between censuses, or a second (or first) marriage, or illegitimate offspring, but when I look at the tree of knowledge that I’ve accumulated over the last 25+ years its clear that it is full of people and stories who were nearly forgotten.

And that’s my job. To make sure that these people and their stories aren’t forgotten. Some of them some people might consider to be small, some of them might come with flashes and lights and whistles, some are every-day people, some took part in or were affected by the big bangs of society. But all of them are important, and all of them are worth the time it takes to be uncovered.

So hurrah to all of you who are plugging away at your family history and getting excited by moving one more generation, step by step, brick by brick, branch by branch. All of it is important: everyone deserves to be remembered.