Who do you think you are?

An awesome new show on NBC, but more importantly, a fundamentally human question that everyone should ask themselves - and find out.

I am a tapestry made of flesh and bone, woven by those who came before me, from threads of love, sacrifice, tragedy, and triumph.

I am a descendant of hearty and hopeful Prussian immigrants, huddled up in makeshift shacks in the frozen northern woods, of Civil War soldiers treading wearily in worn shoes in the mud, of children left motherless and stripped of their innocence.

I am a descendant of Moravian missionaries, saying their last prayers as flames and tomahawks fly. Of a priest, quietly pacing the halls of Bath Abbey. Of an Irish Protestant-tormentor, escaped from jail and hidden in the cargo bay of a ship bound for Canada.

I am all of these things and more. I am a multi-faceted diamond, cut and shaped by the events of the past. It is critical to find and appreciate these people, and the events in their lives that made them who they were, and us who we are. Without this knowledge, we are nothing but a lump of coal, plain and of little value, with nothing to shape it into the precious stone it could become.