02/02/2014
HERITAGE PART 1
“Remember the Days of Old, consider the years of many generations: ask your parents, and they will show you; your elders, and they will tell you.”
Almost every society that has developed over the past 4,000 years has made an attempt to preserve its history in some form or another. Today we record facts and events in astonishing detail. In times past the Jewish scribes would religiously copy manuscripts letter for letter. The Egyptians constructed large architectural structures in hopes that they would endure. The Irish maintained schools of Bards that would memorize their history. The attempts of these people to preserve and pass down their history, knowledge, and culture to generations of people who had yet to be born was an attempt to preserve and tell an intentional message. It was an attempt to pass on the wisdom and experience of the generations that had gone before them. This one facet makes the study of your family's history a valuable use of your time.
It will provide you the basis for, and a depth of, an understanding in the subjects of economics, education, geography, law, psychology, linguistics, political science and foreign policy among others. It provides the seeds of wisdom that will grow into true wisdom as you study any of the above subjects. This is how history enhances the study of those subjects and thus enhances your own education and life. This is history in general. But what of heritage? What of YOUR heritage? What is it and why is that important?
Continued in PART 2
