"If you don't know your history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree." - Michael Crichton

"To forget one's ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root."
A Chinese Proverb

There were a lot of blanks in my family tree, so I started searching for ancestors in 2013 and it has become an amazing hobby. I grew up in a small family without any aunts, uncles or cousins. Now I have found hundreds of them, plus dozens of great grandparents and great great grandparents I never knew anything about. I'm anxious to find out more about their lives. My research is focused on the Frum family history, which includes many Selveys, Newlons, Goodwins, Bartletts, Cleavengers, Swigers, Biglers and other West Virginians. Most of them originally came from Germany or England.

My mother descended from Morrisons, a family of Scots who also settled in West Virginia.

My step-father came from another long line of Scots, the Marshalls, who emigrated to Pennsylvania. I've been lucky enough to trace that line back to 1560.

DEAR ANCESTOR,
Your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you.

Author Unknown

"If you don't know your history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree." - Michael Crichton

"To forget one's ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root."
A Chinese Proverb

There were a lot of blanks in my family tree, so I started searching for ancestors in 2013 and it has become an amazing hobby. I grew up in a small family without any aunts, uncles or cousins. Now I have found hundreds of them, plus dozens of great grandparents and great great grandparents I never knew anything about. I'm anxious to find out more about their lives. My research is focused on the Frum family history, which includes many Selveys, Newlons, Goodwins, Bartletts, Cleavengers, Swigers, Biglers and other West Virginians. Most of them originally came from Germany or England.

My mother descended from Morrisons, a family of Scots who also settled in West Virginia.

My step-father came from another long line of Scots, the Marshalls, who emigrated to Pennsylvania. I've been lucky enough to trace that line back to 1560.

DEAR ANCESTOR,
Your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you.

Author Unknown