City: Keller     State: Texas	Country: United States
Herb Prewitt	Khysunja Frisella

Science Log:

Your Ancestry

When my wife first told me we were expecting our first child, I was elated. Then after the initial news wore off, I began doubting myself. How was I going to relate to this child? Would I be a good father? How much would my life change? As the pregnancy progressed, I became more at ease with the prospects of fatherhood. About 3 months into it, we found out that the baby was a boy. Oh, the things I could teach him - how to throw and catch a ball, score a goal and shoot a gun. I could give him my old football jerseys and teach him how to tackle. Or hand over various treasures from when I was a kid and see his eyes sparkle, as mine did so many years ago. Then one day, I was thumbing through a book trying to get ideas on being a dad when I read the following passage written by Russell Baker:

We all come from the past,
and children ought to know
what it was that went into their making,
to know that life is a
braided cord of humanity
stretching up from time long gone,
and that it cannot be defined
by the span of a single journey
from diaper to shroud.

Wow! The best thing I could ever give my son and his future family is a knowledge and understanding of who he is and where he came from - his genealogy. With this in mind, I embarked on a journey of discovery, in search of his past as well as mine. What I have found is truly amazing. In a little over three-year's time, I have gathered close to 45,000 names with locations as mundane as Denton, Texas and as exotic as Alexandria, Egypt. I know that some of the information I have gathered is incorrect, as would be expected with an undertaking of this magnitude. Some of the people I have listed might not be related. But for the time being, they will stay in the pages of his legacy until I can prove otherwise. Until then, a little boy will be able to dream of relatives as far flung as knights in armor doing battle on some great battlefield; or of a distant samurai warrior protecting his realm from evil; or of the hardships of fighting a bloody civil war; or of the horrors of WWII and the end result of it - me, my wife and ultimately, our son.

From this new hobby, I have tried to revive people that once existed and have since been forgotten so that we might not forget yet again. I have tried taking mere names on paper and giving them back their lives, their good moments and bad, their families. I have tried putting faces with names and hope I've done so with good accuracy. I am certain my descendants will enjoy reading this story - their history.

I was attending a meeting recently where the speaker posed the following questions:

If we were asked to go the airport and pick up our great-great grandfather, how many of us would recognize him as he came off the plane? Is he tall? Short? Bald? Does he wear glasses or a moustache? Would we have to hold up a sign with his name on it? How many of us even know this relative's name?

Then my mind started drifting and I thought of an old Chinese proverb that I had read once upon a time which goes something like this…

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

Too insurmountable a task, you say? Not really. It all starts with you writing your individual history. Follow it up with your family history. Ask your parents and grand parents to jot down their memoirs. Include pictures and any other memento, package all this information together and you have a great history book - your own history! Who knows, someday your great-grand children will enjoy reading about you and receive inspiration from your life. And if the same questions are ever posed to your progeny, they will be able to pick you out of any group, anywhere.

Science Officer: Lt. Sal Frisella