The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

The thing that interests me most about family history is the gap
between the things we think we know about our families and the realities.

We are a continuum. Just as we reach back to our ancestors for our fundamental values,
so we, as guardians of that legacy, must reach ahead to our children and their children.
And we do so with a sense of sacredness in that reaching.

If we tried to sink the past beneath our feet, be sure the future would not stand.

We are often haunted by important relationships from the past that influence us unconsciously in the present. As we work them through, they go from haunting us to becoming simply part of our history.

Our ancestors are totally essential to our every waking moment,
although most of us don’t even have the faintest idea about their lives,
their trials, their hardships or challenges.

I saw behind me those who had gone, and before me those who are to come. I looked back and saw my father, and his father, and all our fathers, and in front to see my son, and his son, and the sons upon sons beyond. And their eyes were my eyes.

A family tree can wither if nobody tends it’s roots.

In every conceivable manner, family is the link to our past, bridge to our future.

Remember me in the family tree
My name, my days, my strife;
Then I’ll ride upon the wings of time
And live an endless life.

It is indeed a desirable thing to be well-descended,
but the glory belongs to our ancestors.

Eastern Jews have no home anywhere, but their graves may be found in every cemetery.

To understand and reconnect with our stories, the stories of the ancestors,
is to build our identities.