“… there is a vast mass of things in the world, and the act of creation that cuts through them divides the things that might have happened from those that did. … I did and do believe, after all that I’ve seen and done, that if you project yourself into the mass of things, if you look for things, if you search, you will, by the very act of searching, make something happen that would not otherwise have happened, you will find something, even something small, something that will certainly be more than if you hadn’t gone looking in the first place, if you hadn’t asked your grandfather anything at all. … There are no miracles, no magical coincidences. There is only looking, and finally seeing, what was always there.”

and

“I told her that I, too, was interested in facts, of course, that we had started out on this long series of journeys because we wanted to find the facts. But I said that because of what we’d heard on our trips, I’d also become extremely interested in stories, in the way that the stories multiplied and gave birth to other stories, and that even if these stories weren’t true, they were interesting because of what they revealed about the people who told them. What they revealed about the people who told them, I said, was also part of the facts, the historical record.”

— Daniel Mendelsohn, Lost: The Search for Six of Six Million

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Yesterday, New Year’s Eve, Scuffalong:Genealogy had its best day ever — more than 400 views. In no small way because of your support, I start 2015 renewed and reinvigorated in my quest to find and share my stories. Thank you.