Family Members Who Served
Our ancestors lived much tougher lives than we ever will. We have comforts and advantages they could never dream. Like their
descendants, our ancestors had differing, and often changing religious and political beliefs. And like our ancestors,
we can easily claim these as difficult and troubling times. Our Democracy, or more accurately our Republic, requires information to
be freely available with minimal secrets. Something the past years under the excuse of 9-11-2007 seems to have been forgotten. Have you found
any courthouses that hide genealogy information behind the veil of 9/11 secrecy? It is more common than you think. Image the
difficulties future generations of genealogist are going to have trying to research their 21st century ancestors if we haven't
recorded it for them! Minimal newspaper obituaries and cremations without a tombstone will create "brick walls" for future
family researchers. Your unlisted phone numbers, unreturned census records, and sophisticated privacy shell games will hide you
from your future descendants too!
Regardless of which side you support during political elections I do agree with some talking heads on television. Lou Dobbs
in his 2006 book War on the Middle Class offers some
worthwhile suggestions in Chapter 12. Everyone should read and reread The Declaration of Independence,
our Constitution, and
the Bill of Rights
which are the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. If you claim to be a Christian or
other religious denomination, then you should read the Bible so you know what it actually says and not rely on someone else's
interpretation of what they think it means. With something like 2,000 different translations of the Bible the well known phrase
"something gets lost in translation" certainly applies.
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