A Community of Families
We Are Storytellers
We Provide a Place
We Provide Security
The Storytellers
We are the chosen. My feelings are, in each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know, and approve.To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the storytellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called as it were, by our genes.
Those who have gone before cry out to us: Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors you have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us? How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say.
It goes beyond just documenting facts. It goes to who I am and why do I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can’t let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it.
It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.
It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us.
So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers.
That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and put flesh on the bones.
Meet The Founders
About This Storyteller
Heather Feuerhelm
Heather has more than 30 years of administrative and desktop publishing experience. She created her first website in 1995 and never looked back. She came late to genealogy, when her father's cousin sent her all her notes on the Larlees (her dad's line) in 2001. Website design and genealogy are now her two favorite interests.
Heather is the principal owner of Uniquely Yours Web Services, a web hosting and design company specializing in genealogical sites. She also happens to be her family's storyteller. Her genealogy site is The Larlee Genealogy.
About This Storyteller
Martin Mosley
Martin led the development and delivery of sport, leisure, cultural and environmental services in a large local government authority for more than 17 years. He was also Executive Director of the second philharmonic orchestra in the UK and worked with some of the best known classical and contemporary musicians around the world.
His primary interest today is as an historian and genealogist. He helps people around the world research their family histories and understand the social and local history of the areas their family lived. He does his own storytelling on Mosley Families (his dad's side), The Derbyshire HIlls (his mum's side) and Brampton Old and New (the area where he grew up).