Silent night, holy night
All is calm all is bright
'Round yon virgin Mother and Child
Holy infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent Night- Gruber and Mohr, 1818

Welcome to the December newsletter. The English version of Silent Night was written in 1863 by John Freeman Young. In German or English it’s my favorite Christmas Carol.

GENEALOGY

Did you ever try to look up your family history or try to write a “Family Tree”? In this secular world we succumb to, few people know or care to know anyone beyond their parents. Some don’t even know their dad because of divorce or a generation of single moms.

I have an English surname that can be traced to one very small region in England and most, if not all, Conybear’s are related. My grandma did research on the name when she was young; way before computers. She had help but it took many years to gather information and facts were still sketchy. She did most of her work in public libraries.

Recently, I met a Conybear from England that spent 20 years doing the same work and she shared her results with me. After 20 years though, she could only go back to the beginning of the 1700’s.

That made me curious so I tried to go farther back. One would think that with records kept by a huge variety of sources, all available on the internet, that it would be easy. Not quite. This is a world where money talks and public records are not public. Records are owned by Ancestry.com and other organizations and they will dole out information for a price. I have nothing against free enterprise but it makes such endeavors very expensive.

Now, each day, I like to read the Bible. Knowing that it was time to write this December newsletter, I thought I would read the book of Matthew again to put me in the right frame of mind for Christmas. When I’m looking for ideas for the newsletter, I read my study Bible for their input on the side of every page and the clever subtitles they have at the start of each chapter.

In the Quest Study Bible, the Book of Matthew starts with the subtitle, “Genealogy”. I’ve read it many times before but this time it hit me hard as that word seemed like a large neon light flashing in my eyes. In a King James Version of the Bible, they just jump right in and tell the names of Jesus’ family. Your mind tends to drift in a flurry of “begats”. However, here I was taking a break from researching my own family history and here was Jesus’ family tree, free of charge.

Then as I tried to read, my mind kept coming back to the fact that if they had to rely on computers, we might never have known any of those people. If Jesus had been born in these times and wanted to know anyone beyond His grandpa, he would be sitting at some little computer desk, staring at a screen while fumbling for His credit card because Ancestry.com needed money for facts. He couldn’t really even trust that the facts he was charging were accurate.

Every so often, you may come across someone who knows their entire family history. They might have had a family member that came to this country on the Mayflower or fought in the Revolutionary War. Over all though, they are a rarity and they were lucky that their family kept accurate records.

The most ironic fact I find though is that the best records were kept in family Bibles. Remember those huge, fancy Bibles that had room in the front to write the names of everyone in the family? They still make them but they are hard to find. After all, why buy a Bible when you can watch movies about Bible stories or listen to someone read it for you on an audio CD? Who has time for such a thing?

My parents did not have such a family Bible and it’s doubtful that any other family members kept one. That’s why my grandma started her research. When you meet someone who knows their family history, you can be sure there was one of those huge, fancy Bibles in their homes. Consider such a Good Book as a Christmas gift, though you may not be well liked by Ancestry.com. Genealogy may become an everyday fact instead of a business with a few of those huge, fancy Bibles.

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Matthew 1:1