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Note: These pages are a little out of date at this point. We have a
few more current genealogical items that you should check out: our
genealogy
blog (also called The Hallmanac) and our family
tree website. (DH, 12Sept2005)
D & D's Hallmanac -- A Family History
About D & D's Hallmanac
When I was eight or nine years old, I discovered some old papers in a
drawer at my grandparents house. On these papers information concerning
the names and dates of my ancestors were recorded. No tales of heroic
battles or political intrigue -- just names and a few notes about marriages,
births and deaths. The discovery of my family tree fascinated me. The
idea that I descended from people who traced out a continuous line
stretching into the remote past seemed a mysterious thing to my boyhood
mind. Interest in my family's genealogy never escalated into a mania. I
began to research this family history by asking for photocopies of whatever
records might be in the possession of my relatives -- a meager collection
of names and dates and a few yellowing newspaper clippings. A few
years ago (1998), I did ask my grandparents to tell me what they could remember,
but I quickly found that their memories, while good at recalling specifics,
were not capable of putting together a story. The story I have had to
piece together myself.
A family history is not identical to a family tree or genealogical listing
of names and dates. Genealogy is important to establish relationships
between people and to determine the dates and places associated with each of
the characters that animate the history. Genealogy is the raw data, the
skeleton upon which the flesh of family history grows.
The story that I would like to tell is bound together by many themes, such
as pioneering -- the struggle with the land for subsistence, religious
life -- the search for God, agrarian communitarianism -- living and working
together with one's neighbors, stoicism, repression, fundamentalism,
anti-intellectualism, etc. Some themes like commitment to family are
noble, others, such as moral repression and anti-intellectualism are born
out of ignorance. The story operates on many levels and across many
generations.
The contents of this website will provide much of the genealogical
information that I find, but my focus is to animate the lives of the people
whose names and dates are listed in the genealogical registry. The content
you find here is complementary and supplementary to the books that I'm
putting together on various family members or families.
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