Happy anniversary to my parents. On September 10, 1966, Ruth Ellen Woodman married Robert Carl Shepard, at the First Presbyterian Church in Paw Paw, Van Buren County, Michigan.
It is said, if you go back far enough we are all related. And that families don’t always get along. Way back in Genesis we are told the cautionary tale of Cain and Abel, yet I Timothy 5:8 reminds us “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” We are all in this together.
I am all about building better places to live–learning from history. Learning from our ancestors. Family history is one way I find to better relate to those lessons.
It is said (there’s that phrase again) that of the 51 out of 102 passengers on the Mayflower who had children, and estimated 35 million people can trace their ancestry to these Pilgrims. As well, many of us can trace ourselves back to the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland and Wales and Ireland for what that is worth. I am happy to have done the research to count myself among them. Yet also, many millions of Americans can trace their ancestry to enslaved Africans, including my wife’s family. America is a nation of immigrants, as much today as 1776.
Check out more of my family history work on my All Things Shepard page.