There can be numerous reasons why you are are getting into researching your family history.
Maybe you want to find living relatives. Maybe you want to know where your family originated from? Maybe we want to find out about various illnesses or causes of death? Maybe you are just the curious type.
This last one, would be my reason. I am a curious person by nature.
I have a relative who has been into genealogy for as long as I can remember. I was introduced to it through her enthusiasm and love of family history. She really had be intrigued. She is an excellent story teller and she makes everything sound so interesting. Myself, I am not such a great story teller, but my thing is doing the actual research and finding the documents to support the stories. I love doing this kind of thing.
When I first started there wasn't the wealth of information on the internet that there is now, or at least I didn't know about it then. So in the beginning I didn't do too much research at all, it was more about writing down what I had. Then, about 5 years later I got into it some more. I found out quite a bit of information through online resources and was excited about what I was finding out. Then life took over and I took a break for quite a while. I started up again this past year and I am discovering more and more how much I am loving it!
Whatever our reason for looking into our family history, if it has become your hobby I am sure you can agree that it is very addictive. Even if you only do it sporadically, once you start it's in your blood!
So tell me, what got you started on genealogy?
I started during the end of college when I was finishing my History degree. I had to do a family history project and after that I was hooked. So for about 14 years now I have been researching. I'm just now starting to write the stories.
ReplyDeleteI too love to find the documentation to prove or disprove or say, ok that is a possibility, to the family stories. My big hunt right now is to find out what my grandfather experienced as a Naval Armed Guard member during WWII. Family stories differ greatly and do not correspond with the information I am receiving through documents.
Researching these stories can be frustrating, yet so much fun!