I have learned that when genealogists, or people doing just their own genealogy say:  "Have you got a minute?"  I need to look at the clock and see if I have an hour or so.  We love to tell stories.  Stories about our family history, about unusual happenings with people we have helped, about the exciting new technological inventions that will make it easier for us.  I love stories.  I love to tell them.  I love to be told them.  People tell me stories about their ancesotrs - about people I don't know, never knew, and never cared about - until now.   My contact with people - both living and dead - through doing genealogy has made me realize that these are, and have been, real people with personality quirks and wonderful stories to tell.  They lived in the material world with "things" just like us, only in some cases, different things.  I've come to realize that these people and their things that make up their stories are important, not just to the people telling them, but to all of us.  We are connected by genealogy work.  And by our humanity.