Welcome readers!
Some of you have asked why this website exists, and why have I've spent so much time researching my family tree. Here's the short answer.
Assidua eruditio generat ipsam lucem omnibus praebens scientiam.
Diligent scholarship generates the very light, providing knowledge to all.
The inspiration for this research came mainly from my two grandmothers, Lydia Foth Bredthauer and Emma Rewinkel Eggert, who each documented our family history. I built on their work for my very first family tree, which started as a high-school English assignment.
My grandmothers cared about this because they knew that God created each of us in His image. We are not mere creatures of the world; there's a spark of the Almighty in each of us. This idea is at the root of any healthy society: it's why we're called to treat each other with respect, honor, and love. It's the basis of the Golden Rule.
As Robert Louis Stevenson put it, We are all nobly born; fortunate those who know it; blessed those who remember.
Paracelsus took this even further. In his posthumously-published Astronomia Magna, he laid out a mystical, physical take on our special creation, drawing on Genesis 2:7.
Dann da iſt nichts das bleiblich iſt/ vnd alſo iſt in das fuͤnfft weſen kommen/ alle Natur der ganꜩen Welt/ der entpfindtlichen vnd vnentpfindtlichen/ vnd gefaßt worden in ein Fauſt zuſammen/ in ein Maſſam/ das hat der gethan/ der Himmel vnd Erden beſchaffen hat/ vnd auß demſelben fuͤnfften weſen/ das die Geſchrifft Limum Terrae neñet. Auß dieſem Limo/ hat der Schoͤpffer der Welt/ die kleine Welt gemacht/ den Microcoſmum/ das iſt den Menſchẽ. Alſo iſt der Menſch die kleine Welt/ das alle eigenſchafft der Welt hab in ihme. Darumb iſt er Microcoſmus/ darumb iſt er das fuͤnfft weſen/ der Element/ vnd des Geſtirns oder Firmaments/ in der obern Sphera/ vnd in dem vndern Globo.
For there is nothing that is permanent, and thus into the fifth essence came all natures of the whole world, sensible and insensible, and were gathered together into a fist, into a mass by the One who created heaven and earth; and from the same fifth essence which the Scripture calls "Limum Terrae". From this dust the Creator of the earth made the little world, the microcosmos, which is man. Thus man is the little world that has all the characteristics of the world in him. Thus he is the microcosmos, thus he is the fifth essence of the elements and of the heavenly bodies or firmament in the upper sphere and in the lower globe.
This special bond between God and man, established in the first Adam, found its culmination, and we our reconciliation and salvation, in Jesus Christ, the second Adam! As Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:9–10:
Ὑμεῖς δὲ γένος ἐκλεκτόν, βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος ἅγιον, λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν, ὅπως τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐξαγγείλητε τοῦ ἐκ σκότους ὑμᾶς καλέσαντος εἰς τὸ θαυμαστὸν αὐτοῦ φῶς· οἵ ποτε οὐ λαὸς νῦν δὲ λαὸς θεοῦ, οἱ οὐκ ἠλεημένοι νῦν δὲ ἐλεηθέντες. (SBLGNT)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (ESV)Or, even more to the point, John, in 1 John 3:1a:
ἴδετε ποταπὴν ἀγάπην δέδωκεν ἡμῖν ὁ πατὴρ ἵνα τέκνα θεοῦ κληθῶμεν, καὶ ἐσμέν. (SBLGNT)
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. (ESV)
So, fellow children of God all, read, ponder, and respond in that spirit!