In our post last week about family Bibles, we asked you to share stories about your own family Bible, if you have one. Many of you responded with fantastic stories about Bibles that have been passed down your family tree for generations. Here are some of those stories; all of these were shared with us via the Bible Gateway page on Facebook.

From Alice Nash:

“We have various ones from different branches of the family tree. They are all the big, older style hardcover bible with a place to write family information between the Old and New Testament. A few of them have obituaries and newspaper clippings about family in the pages and pressed flowers.”

From Catalin Radut:

“I have an old Romanian translated Bible that was given to me by my grandfather who had it pretty much all his life. It had to be smuggled in the country and he had to be careful with it because at the time the communist government would confiscate it and throw you in the dungeon just for having it.”

From Donna Jones Parratt:

“We have a special family Bible which has been passed down for many generations. It originally belonged to my great-great-grandfather who died in 1870. It was eventually given to his granddaughter, my grandmother, and she passed it on to me. My son now has it. As special as it his for the family history, it is never read as it is written in Welsh, and none of us speak or read that language.”

From Diana Loveland Noack :

“My grandmother gave me ours. It started off as an average award type Bible, but she has tracked 5 generations of our family in it as well as her own notations in the margins. She is 95 years old and I know I will treasure this Bible for my lifetime. One day I will have to decide who to pass it on too, I hope that is a hard decision because there are so many of my own grandchildren who will appreciate it.”

From Vivian Jean Ussery:

“Our family Bible was produced in 1845 and was the only thing in the house that survived Sherman’s troops torching the house. There is a burn mark on the front cover where a beam fell across it. We don’t read it because the pages are so brittle. It has a place on honor on a book table.”

From Mry Lafferty Wlsn:

“My grandfather, born in 1838, became a Methodist minister in 1863 after he was wounded in the Civil War. I have his pulpit Bible with the names of his children. Grandpa died in 1911 and it was 31 years later that I was born to grandpa’s youngest son. My dad was 67–and 30 years later I became keeper of that Bible. I cherish it and it has become the cornerstone for my genealogy. For some there are more generations between Grandpa and their generation. I later came across the person who had the pages from great-grandpa’s Bible.”

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to share! It was rewarding to hear how God’s Word has stayed with your families over the generations.

On a related side note, Linda Leone mentioned that her local town library keeps a selection of family Bibles on its shelves to aid in genealogical research—and your library may do the same! As a former public library librarian, I can attest that your public library is the place to start when you need to gather local information about your town.