Today is the first Thanksgiving in my whole life I have spent without my family. Usually I spend the day driving back and forth between events on my mother's side and my father's side(the glamorous life of a child of divorced parents). But today I sit alone in my little house across the world from my home country and my familiar treasured traditions. I feel a little lonely and sad but end up spending most of my energy thinking about all the things in my life that I am thankful for.
The picture above is a photograph of my Great-Great Grandmother's family that was emailed to me by a distant relative I have never met. In this new world of advanced technology we Americans are able to connect and transfer information about common heritage in a way that was never possible before. All I had to do was sign up for a trial membership with Ancestry.com, plug in the little I knew about my Grandparents and Great-Grandparents and a whole forgotten world was at my finger tips.
I found it kind of wonderful that on the first Thanksgiving Day I spent without my close family, I was given glance through a window to another time, and to another family that I am a part of.
