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Like what age did you first become interested in knowing all about your family tree?
I became interested when my dad died in Texas and his only remaining sibling knew nothing about where or when our family first came to America. I realized I was working in the city where much family information goes to die but a place with some of America's greatest repositories of this type of information, e.g., the Library of Congress, the National Archives and others. It was then that I also realized that there were no good excuses for my own ignorance.
I had been fairly interested for a long time. My dad's side of the family held a reunion every three years, so I learned quite a bit through that. Then I married somebody that loves geneology. I joke that I think the main reason my wife married me was to have another family tree to work on. lol She's taken us back to the 14th century in London. But, while she was able to get out, and before the ancestrial web sites made it easy to find everything, I made a lot of trips to libraries and courthouses getting information.
A cousin on my mother's side started taking his son camping in VT every summer so they could trace the family history. Our family reunions had always been held at his parents' house so I guess that's what got him interested. I happened to be visiting my motiher one time when he was there and I got hooked.
By going in person, he ended up with all sorts of relics and photographs. I ended up taking it over, going back to the Puritans and even to where they came from in England.
On my Dad's side we were forbidden to ask. But at his funeral his brother wondered what his grandfather's name was. I had just gotten my first computer...what an adventure this has turned into !
Living with my immigrant Great-Grandma as a young child peaked my interest in the stories she told me about her experiences coming over on the ship from Salerno when she was 11 years old. Kept that in my mind when I seriously started doing genealogy back in the 70's in my 20's with shoe leather research.
I was also interested in History growing up. You cannot do your own genealogy without knowing History. Your ancestors were a part of the history of times.
My Dad also talked about his Uncle Phil. He said that his Grandpa had a half brother who came to America with rest of family from England. I HAD to find out more about him. Loved Mysteries as well.
When the Internet came out, I searched British Census records online. I found "Uncle Phil" living in a Home for Boys in England. Great-grandpa then was unmarried and a teenager. Never found out who his mother was, but he was named after his father.
Many decades later when I did my DNA with Ancestry, I found a cousin living in New Zealand. We contacted each other. She was originally from England, looked at my online Tree, and said her Great-Grandpa in England was the same as mine. Apparently he not only had a son born out of wedlock, but a daughter as well who was this woman's Grandma.
Very interesting facts proven by both research, and DNA today.
I got into genealogy because of my paternal grandad. When I was really small, 4 and 5, I was grandad's shadow. In the garden, working the irrigation, watching the hay balers, picking fruit....and him talking to me. I don't know why but he would tell me about his family and growing up. Maybe I asked him questions but at that age how would I know what to ask? Anyway, he instilled a big curiosity.
My grandma talked to me about her family when I was a teenager. She was born in 1880 and died in 1971 so she saw a LOT of changes. She lived in Nebraska till about 10 then her dad moved them to Ft. Scott,KS. She told me about the Indian encampments when the tribes would come to talk to the "Government people". She told me about watching the railroad be built. About not being able to vote. She was pretty political for a woman. I can remember a lot of it and it has helped me in my research. I just wish she had told me her grandfather's first name!!
Fast forward about 30 years. One of my aunts, for some reason, had my original birth cert., a large portrait of me at 14 months and ONE piece of paper with just enough family info to get me started. And I haven't quit. It never ends.
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