When I first began my genealogy research I thought it was going to be fairly simple. I had seen websites that tell you to type in your last name, hit enter and find a lead. I found out very quickly that was not the case. It takes a great deal of patients, organization and attention to detail. But once you find that first person or place or date you've been looking for, you begin to get sucked in, and want to go further. And in the end it is very rewarding. So much more is gained than names and dates. Stories that will come from family members who didn't realize they still remembered that far back, or from articles in the newspaper printed years and years ago. Since I was about 15 years old I have been very interested in studying cultures of all kinds. I am always fascinated by tradition, and the bond that I have seen created almost immediately between two people just meeting, who have been brougt up in a culture which holds tradition and family very dear to them. Not only have I been fascinated with it, but I feel a longing for it. This is a big reason why I decided to create a genealogy of my family, to find out where my family did actually come from and how they have lived through the years. Also am learning a great deal in copletely different areas. "It can not only lead to a knowledge of your ancestors, it can open new horizons in history, language, geography, and travel" -Tracing Your Ancestry, F. Wilbur Helmbold. And in my experience so far I have found this to be very true.
 | I was just about to hang up the phone after talking with my grandma one day, when her brother, my great uncle walked in to her house. So I talked with him for a bit and found out that the school in this picture is where my great great grandma went to school. |
Sarah, a lady, who I spoke with about her ancestry search, said that she had been looking through records at the library all day and couldn't find antything on a particular person. She decided to scroll through some microfilm quickly, just before she left and, to her surprise, she found a front page newspaper article about a store that had burned down. The store belonged to the very person she was looking for. Sarah not only found his name, but also what he looked like, what kind of work he did and a little bit of his history. So you never know when you're going to find something. It is usually when you least expect it, that is what makes it so exciting.Genealogies have been made for ages. The Egyptians were the first to use them, although they were committed to memory rather than written. Royalty were believed to have decended from the gods and would become gods once they passed. Only someone coming from the family line of a god could rule, therefore it was important to know your lineage. Children were required to commit to memory and recite their family tree. King Solomon was the next to use genealogies, and this is when documentation began. English genealogies commenced with the rise of heraldry and adoption of surnames. Genealogies were used not only to legitimize kings, but also princes, priests and descent of real estate. Attorneys use genealogies to settle family estates, biographers use them to develope family backgrounds and medical research specialists, mainly geneticists, benifit from genealogical princeples. There are plenty of reasons why people decide to search for their ancestors; some do it just for the thrill of finding out whether they are related to a person of importance. In his book, How to Write the History of a Family, W.P.W. Phillimore wrote, "All races of men seem to possess an instinctive feeling that a line of honourable ancestry is a subject for legitimate pride." My great-grandma did some research a while back and found that there is a possibility we are related to Charlemagne. I have to admit, even though she had not found out for sure, I was pretty excited by the idea.
What ever your reason, I guarantee you that it will be worth the journey. "It can not only lead to a knowledge of you ancestors, it can open new horizons in history, language, geography and travel." - Tracing Your Ancestry, p2
