We embrace a lot in our family; we're very huggy.
However, I'm thinking today of a different usage of the word, as in: How much of the wide circle of people related, however tangentially, to me am I going to embrace, that is, include in my family history researches?
I could stick only to my direct line, but that could be boring.
I could cast a very wide net and go running after people with the most minute relationship.
I could try to figure out some middle-ground rubric to observe in my investigations.
Or I could do what I do: come across an interesting-sounding relation and pursue it to as many documents as I can find, and celebrate the findings. Like finding out that my husband is distantly related to one of Florida's best and most-loved governors, Lawton Chiles. Or like finding out that there's a family that is related to both my mother's line and my father's. Or like finding out that my maternal grandmother's third husband was a ne'er-do-well who ended up in a mental-health facility. Good stories, interesting people, and not always with happy endings.
I know I'll never find everybody, and won't find everything about everybody. I don't have that much time left. Besides, genealogy is a journey, not a destination. So I'll be happy with what I find, and hope that someday, someone will carry this family history a bit farther along, and will find more interesting people about whom to discover good stories.
A to Z blogging challenge.
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