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I recently read genealogy is the #1 hobby in America. Hmmm........wonder why is that?
I did a little research into my family tree, found my great-grandparents, ok, so, then, so what? So now I know their names.
Not to knock anyone's hobby, but what is the excitement all about? I mean, you can only "discover' ancestors once, then what? make scrapbooks out of them? I'm just wondering what there is to it that involves people so much......
Not everyone is into it. It can be boring and tedious at times. I think it's exciting discovering your personal family history. Maybe it's just not your cup of tea. If you've found your great-grandparents, then try to find their parents, if you want.
I did it for a year and yes it is tedious, but rewarding. You can find out a lot more than names. I really want to get back into it!! I loved it, I found it exciting. I want to know more about my history the older I get.
I have been doing genealogy since LBC (Long Before Computers) and to me it's like playing detective except more personal. I find a clue, follow it to it's end, or it branches off and starts another, etc. etc.. And often I'm asked to help others. It keeps me off the streets and out of the bars.
I recently read genealogy is the #1 hobby in America. Hmmm........wonder why is that?
I think it has something to do with the fact that America is a country of immigrants and a lot of people have an interest in knowing when and where from their families arrived in the country.
That said, genealogy is certainly a popular hobby in other countries too. I find it interesting because it's kind of like detective work. It's exciting when you discover something new and you know it's a part of your own family history. That said, I don't take it too personally - I don't see the point in being ashamed of things my ancestors did, for example. I had nothing to do with it, it just is what it is. But everything my ancestors did and who they were, lead to my existence too and I find that cool.
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I did a little research into my family tree, found my great-grandparents, ok, so, then, so what? So now I know their names.
Find out as much about them as you can, not just their names. Find out when and where they were born and died (and hopefully when they married too). If someone who knew them personally is still alive, learn as much as you can from them, not just vital info like birth and death but personal stories. Then look for their parents... and then their parents... and so on. Hopefully, you can also find the siblings of direct ancestors too.
Ancestry.com can help, I got a lot of census results from them. Be careful with censuses though because they are not always very accurate (ages/birth years can be slightly off, birth locations can be wrong, names can be spelled wrong, etc). The member trees on ancestry.com can help as well but also be careful about inaccuracies - you can use them to find records and sources but if the trees are unsourced, don't just assume they are right. I put in the names of the next generation which I don't have but only so I can remember to research and confirm them.
Not to knock anyone's hobby, but what is the excitement all about? I mean, you can only "discover' ancestors once, then what? make scrapbooks out of them? I'm just wondering what there is to it that involves people so much......
It's not just about finding names. I've reached a point now where I think I've pretty much hit a brick wall with all my branches in terms of finding more names and generations. But part of my problem is that I'm currently living in England and only one of my branches is from England (I'm American). So I can only do research on the internet and that can be limiting. I'm hoping to gather more info when I'm visiting my family in July because several of my branches have a looooong history in the same area my family still live in.
I also keep in mind that Ancestry.com are constantly added more records to their database. So there's occasionally something new to find, even if it's about an individual who's name you already have. It's not just about name collecting... it's about discovering the actual lives of these people. Like I say, I think I've got pretty much all the names I can find... now it's about finding out as much as I can about the names I already have. I'm lucky in that my grandmother had (and my mother now has) a lot of heirlooms passed down through generations. She has family bibles, diaries, photos, even love letters! So we have personal accounts of the lives of these people. While I'm there in July, my mom and I are going to spend a lot of time scanning all this stuff in to preserve it digitally. So I still have a lot to accomplish.
I am, in fact, in the middle of creating a photobook of our family history... but I'm lucky that we have a lot of photos, even tin types and one oil painting!
I suppose there does reach a point when there's nothing else to really do with your tree. But it's been about a year and a half since I got involved and there's still so much I want to do.
Last edited by PA2UK; 03-23-2010 at 03:46 AM..
Reason: typo
I have been doing genealogy since LBC (Long Before Computers) and to me it's like playing detective except more personal. I find a clue, follow it to it's end, or it branches off and starts another, etc. etc.. And often I'm asked to help others. It keeps me off the streets and out of the bars.
Being a Living Saint (TM) I don't have to worry about the streets and bars, but I too experience it as detective work. After one has found the obvious, it is those little bits and pieces that suggest something or point in some direction....but which one? which fascinate. And from time to time the stories that unfold are fascinating.
I started out wanting just to find the names of my mother's great-grandparents. Along the way I found they were related to many people in the same county. I didn't care about cousins, dates or even places; I still don't. I wanted to know about the relationships and how my family fit into the community network. Well, after finding the 3rd wife and 18 kids I had a pretty good idea. His counterpart was my grandmother's grandfather. He had 12 children. His wife and 2 of the younger children died between Thanksgiving and Christmas the same year an epidemic swept through on small portion of the township. I cannot imagine how awful it would be to bury three on your own in less than 30 days. This family I can trace back to Virginia in the 1700s. The other family I can trace 200 years earlier to the Netherlands. The challenge here was to teach myself how to read old Dutch records written in the 1500s. It took a little over two years to grasp the European history of Ducheys, Counts and Kings, and absolute chuch authority before I understood how my Netherlanders became Belgians.And then there were niggling little questions about name changes when the surname was demaned in the Colonies and these families seemingly vanished into thin air.
I found one of my dad's ancestors in the first Masonic Lodge in America. The Grand Master was none other that the famed silversmith, Paul Revere. Between that and my many Dutchmen who emigrated to the Colonies in the 1600s, I found a new interest in American history. What is most amazing is that after 500 years many of these families have living descendants in America.
I did not intend to do anything except try to answer my mother's question. That was about 15 years ago. Now I am writing the book of my adventures for my great-grandchildren. When they get old enough they will hopefully understand the family apple did not fall from one branch of one tree; many apples fell from many trees long before they were born.
I think genealogy is a rather private hobby, a personal search for the truth as rumors always seem to swirl around ancestral families and hide them in a fog of half-truths and daring do. And maybe some day my grandchildren will want to carry on where I stopped.
Last edited by linicx; 03-23-2010 at 03:40 PM..
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I recently read genealogy is the #1 hobby in America. Hmmm........wonder why is that?
