Connect your family BY RICHARD AND LINDA EYRE grandparenting Y ears ago, we did an oil painting of a large tree with lots of branches and lots of roots. We painted it with an above-ground part and an underground part. Above is the tree itself, with a picture of us stuck on the trunk and one of our children’s pictures on each of the main branches and their children (our grandkids) on the smaller branches. Below, on the under- ground part of the painting, are the symmetrical roots — four of them coming down from the trunk and each splitting into two to form a second root-level of eight, and then, each splitting again to create the lowest level of sixteen roots. We put the best headshot photos we could find of our parents (our children’s four grandpar- ents) on the first four roots, and of our grandparents (our children’s eight great-grandparents) on the next deeper root-row of eight. And through a bit of research, we were also able to find photos of each of our eight great-grandparents (our kids’ sixteen great-great-grandparents.) ” “ There has never been an easier time to create this kind of a family narrative. Websites like familysearch.org make it simple to locate the data on ancestors, and with a little cyber-digging and contacting older relatives who are still alive, it is surprisingly easy to find stories about most of these noble folks to whom we owe so much.
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41 GRANDP arenting
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