Remembering What You Never Knew: Discovering Your Ancestral Legacies

For you to be born today from 12 previous generations, you needed 4,094 ancestors over the last 400 years. Think for a moment – How many struggles? How many battles? How many difficulties? How much sadness? How much happiness? How many love stories? How many expressions of hope for the future? – did your ancestors undergo for you to exist in this present moment?

Like the double helix of DNA, history, and genealogy gives us our genetic, sociological, psychological, and spiritual identities. Lived experiences (genealogy) and the reflection on those experiences (history) shape a double helix.

This workshop uses the genogram to connect the stories between these spiral ladders. An annotated family tree, the genogram reveals physical, emotional, spiritual, and vocational hereditary patterns. These patterns form relationships and identify how family history is connected to the larger historical narrative.

“History belongs to the intercessors – those who believe and pray the future into being.” Walter Wink. Intercessory prayer can heal the past so the future can flourish. Using the genogram as a discernment tool shows us what and how to pray.

In preparation for this workshop, identifying at least three generations of your family members, ancestors, or descendants, will be beneficial.