Project Semiquincentennial: 168 Stories From My Family Tree

It’s finally done.

“This is 168 stories, one per year from 1776 to 1943. Every person in them was real. Most of them you’ve never heard of: fishermen and farmers, shoemakers and mill workers, people who crossed oceans and some who never left their town. They are the people who made [my] four grandparents…”

I use a task tracker on my computer, and according to it, since April 18th (a day before the 251st anniversary of “The Shot Heard ‘Round The World”), I’ve put 161 hours into this project. That doesn’t count all the times I’ve captured some helpless person (my wife, my child, my friends, neighbors, and colleagues, or text chains to my brothers) to talk about a particular ancestor or news article I found, or whatever.

161 hours, and worth every second.

I had so much fun with this project, but I also had my heartbroken so many times by the realities of what my ancestors have lived through.

As my family members read through these stories, I want them to experience the one thing I will most take away from this project: gratitude to all of the human beings, the ones who woke up with aches and pains, laughed and cried, loved and grieved…gratitude to all of them for living their lives so that we may live ours.

There’s an old tradition that says no one dies as long as someone remembers your name. I hope today, everyone in this collection wakes up, if only for a moment, and smiles.

I also hope they say to themselves, “Close enough.”

You can read their stories here.