Why a web you ask?

  Seriously, have you ever really looked at a spider web?  Just ignore the creepy thing with 8 legs and really look at one. They are so beautiful and intricate and connected.  The connectedness is what draws me. Any point you start at you can follow and be connected to any other point. Amazing. 

 That is how I see my family-all my family, as a web. I know most people who are "family history enthusiasts" usually use the analogy of a tree but that is too narrow in my thinking.  It just doesn't connect and bring everyone out there together in the way a web does. Let me give you an example.  I have a friend named Donna. We have been friends for years. Then my daughter living in Utah marries a guy from Connecticut and her husband's aunt is my friend Donna! There goes that web strand and all at once we are bound together as family. But wait!  My niece meets this guy in Idaho and marries Sam who is linked to Donna and the web is forming. Wow!!

The other thing is that all webs aren't the same. They form different, are shaped different, are sized different and NONE are perfect.         

                                                

Some webs are tattered and broken.  Some have holes in them waiting to be filled or mended

     

So here is an exercise I did once when a bunch of the cousins (my nieces and nephews) got together for dinner in Utah a while back.

web.pdf by Debnscott81

Not very pretty but hopefully you get my drift.  See- more of a web than a tree.  So take some time to find your connectedness.  Figure out your web.  Your cousins, their children, spouses, in-laws and outlaws.