63 Quotes About Family-history

Ultimately, the great truths of family history don't live in any book. They live in the hearts and minds of the living descendants. They live in the way we conduct our lives, in the passing of traditions and values to those who will follow.

We are just stars in our family's constellation

My family tree has many branches, both living and dead... but all equally important. I cherish the memories that make its roots run deep.

A person in search of his ancestors naturally likes to believe the best of them, and the best in terms of contemporary standards. Where genealogical facts are few, and these located in the remote past, reconstruction of family history is often more imaginative than correct.

There was something about the people you grew up around, the ones you'd seen throughout your childhood, the folks you couldn't remember not knowing. Even if the past was a complicated mess, as you aged, you were just glad the sons of bitches were still on the planet.It gave you the illusion that life wasn't as fragile as it actually was--and on occasion, that was the only thing that got you through the night.

To have deep roots in a place means having dead buried there. It is almost that literal, the dead forming your bond to the earth and to the others whose dead lie buried there. I always had that bond whether I knew it or not.

She listens to the history of her painting read aloud in court and finds it hard to associate her portrait, the little painting that has hung serenely on her bedroom wall, with such trauma, such globally significant events.

Japan surprised almost everyone but Marty with their attack on Pearl Harbor,

When a writer is born into a family, Czesław Miłosz once famously said, the family is finished. You could forget about having any more secrets. You could forget about hiding what you didn’t want others to know. You were going to be exposed, hung out to air, and by a traitor from within. But later I wondered, Is it the family that’s really finished or simply the writer’s place within it? Could a family still be a family with parts missing?