How Many Generations

 

That is a simple four-generation family pedigree chart. Put your name in that first lonely rectangle, and your parents' in the next two - father on the top, mother on the bottom rectangle. Repeat for your grandparents, then repeat for your great-grandparents. My oldest great-grand was born in 1830. It is possible I will be alive two hundred years after his birth. Sort of puts history into perspective. By research, I have ancestral information back into the 1500's. No big deal, my husband's goes back another 100 years. Royalty tracks theirs back even further.

Much more important is what is passed down. From my parents, I received religious education. My Dad received similar from his mother, but not his father. My Mom's parents were like mine - information from both parents. Not all families pass along religious information. Some do it in such a way that if a child changes their religious affiliation, they are cut off from their family.

Our religious beliefs are not tied to genetics. We do not inherit them the same way we inherit our hair color, skin color, specific diseases, or tendencies for autoimmune diseases. Our children did inherit genes that set those - including the bad as well as the good - but their religious beliefs were chosen for themselves, just as yours are. 

Generations came to mind today during our morning worship service. The pedigree chart piqued my interest back in the 1980's when I got a computer and a program to track family information. It has been a hobby since then, and a pleasure to learn how the gospel message came down through generations - just as the Lord required:

Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons; (Deuteronomy 4:9)

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. (Deuteronomy 6:7)

One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. (Psalms 145:4)

That's only a sample, but Psalm 78 get's very specific and Psalm 71 tells us about ages:

For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children: That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: (Psalms 78:5-7)

O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. (Psalms 71:17-18)

Remember my mentioning above about my paternal grandfather not passing along religious beliefs? I remember him never going to church. Churches are very good at keeping records, some denominations have them for centuries, especially baptisms and marriages. I found his marriage information, but no baptism record. Looking at the time frame/place for his children, I found his brother's wife a church member, but neither one of them showed a church membership at any time in places I knew they lived.

For me, a believing Christian, there is a conclusion that can be reached that he never came to the decision making time in his life. I do not want to leave that question in the minds of my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren - or the descendant that comes along two hundred years from now and wonders about me. 

Where do you stand on sharing with your family?