52 Ancestors - Week 8 - Heirlooms

 52 Ancestors - WEEK 8 - Heirlooms

By Cynthia Keefer Patton

My family does not have a lot of heirlooms. Not physical ones. Very little saved to pass down through the generations. Probably because my grandparents all lived in Pennsylvania, and we lived in Georgia and only got to visit at most once a year throughout my childhood. Other cousins lived close and had much more intimate relationships with them. So likely, they received more items that were "passed down". And that is OK. I am so relentless in my genealogical pursuits to learn more about them, to connect to them, to honor them. So, I will be creating digital heirlooms that others related to us can share.

The precious few I have, a small English tea set (I hope came over with a maternal line on their way to the New World), a wicker sewing cabinet that was my great-grandmothers from Wales, and some handwritten recipe cards from my sweet Mother. But in my heart are a million heirloom memories, that the smell of something baking or the sound of birds in early spring will bring back in an instance. Heirlooms.