This website is dedicated to Sonya Miller Galliani (June 10, 1938 to July 27, 2010).

Many years of research and dedication went into finding all of those who came before us.  I salute Sonya with the  following tribute to her memory;

"We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and  make them live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve. Doing genealogy is not a  cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the storytellers of the tribe. All  tribes have one. We have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us, "Tell our  story!" So, we do.

In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How  many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us." How many times have I  walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting facts.  It goes to who am I and why do I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and  indifference and saying, "I can't let this happen."

Their bones are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our  ancestors were able to accomplish, how they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and  losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride  that the fathers fought and some died to make and keep our Nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding of  what they were doing it all for us.

It is of equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth. Without them we could not exist, and so we love  each one, as far back as we can reach. That we might be born who we are. That we might remember them. So we do.  With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the sum of who we are.

So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and  take my place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what calls those  young and old to step up and restore the memory or greet those whom we had never known before."

Author Unknown