History

History.

It is both fascinating and addicting when you are learning about the stories you are both in and are from. But once you dig beyond living memory and stories that are passed down verbally, the stories fade into dates, data, and lists. So and so was born here on this approximate date. They boarded a boat form here to go there and took with them these things... and so on. 

We lose the personal connections.

The imagination wants more of our ancestors. The imagination wants to know their personalities, their hopes, desires, and fears. Did two people create babies with mutual consent? Was love and romance involved? Or was it simply a chore or a crime? We cannot know these things with only dates, places, and names. We can only guess and make assumption. For the lucky few there may be books or accounts of their lives, left in journals, memoirs, or jotted down by others. But the full scope of their personal lives are mysteries that we´ll never be able to solve.

But none of that stops us from dreaming.