wahinetoa55 (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} wahinetoa55) wrote in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} genealogy,@ 2008-05-14 16:08:00 |
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What is a Family Historian
Between the innocence of childhood and the happy unawareness of the mental asylum, we have that delightful creature called THE FAMILY HISTORIAN.
Family Historians come in assorted sizes, heights and colours, but all have the same creed: to track down ancestors in more archives, libraries, in more newspapers than any other person and to impart their stories at every opportunity to every person who will listen.
Family Historians are found everywhere . . lurking in graveyards, hiding in libraries, rifling through indexes, chasing up leads, organising re-unions and microfiching.
The Registrar General loves them, the Mitchell Library tolerates them, their families humour them and Heaven protects them.
A Family Historian is a writer with a pedigree chart to fill in, an Historian with a death certificate in his hand, and a Society Member with a tape recorder and a parent that is not often home.
To the family and friends he is someone who collects old photos, litters the spare room, writes dozens of letters and has a huge telephone bill. To the local community the Family Historian is a fanatic who reads old papers, asks a lot of questions and knows what S.A.G. means.
The Family Historian is a composite . . . he has the curiosity of a cat, the patience of Job, a craving for his Mother Country, eyesight attuned to micro-films and a hand in his pocket all the time. Nobody is so enthusiastic about a headstone, nobody else can get so much fun out of a Post Office Directory. Nobody else can sit for hours and look at microfilm then fall asleep in front of T.V.
A Family Historian is a magical creature. When his head is drooping over the indexes, his ears humming from a family re-union and his feet sore from walking pavements, when his Officer-Soldier-Settler turns out to be a Convict and he gets no results from the Registrar General, your heart will go out to him, and your spirit gladdens when you hear the shout:
"I've found him"!
Anon
