At a recent funeral, the pastor read a touching poem. I was so impressed with it that I found the author’s website and learned it was written over ten years ago. It has since gained some popularity and I thought it was appropriate for genealogists, who are so concerned with the birth and death dates of our ancestors.
I read of a man who stood to speak
at the funeral of a friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.
He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.
For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth…
and now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.
–excerpt from The Dash, a poem by Linda Ellis
Author: Mike
By way of background, I have over forty years experience as a software engineer. I enjoy genealogy as a hobby, which I started in earnest in 1994. I've always liked family history. Now whenever I uncover some fascinating fact about an ancestor, I also take time to read about that era in history. Whether it be the Napoleonic Wars, the Erie Canal, Steamships, the Port of Hamburg, or hurricane tracks, there's always something new to learn.
By 2000 I published my family tree on the Internet. Unfortunately there were no software tools then that did precisely what I wanted. So I created GED-GEN, a Windows program to automatically generate a genealogy website. It converts a GEDCOM data file to a series of web pages in family group sheet format. Since 2002, people from all over the world have used GED-GEN for their websites.
Today I continue to research my family history, with the help of distant cousins. I am also actively creating digital images of my collection of genealogical evidence.
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