If you don’t know how to research your family tree in order to find genealogy records of your ancestors, or if you want to create your own family genealogy history for your children and grandchildren, there are many ways of finding the ancestry information you are seeking.
Have you ever wondered, What does your family name mean?, or what your family crest looks like? I did and that is just two reasons why genealogy research became a hobby of mine. Thanks to the internet, researching the roots of your family tree has become a lot easier. There are many online resources available to help create your family tree as I have been doing for a few years now, and I now know what my family name means and what my family’s crest looks like.
My family has never been very open and vocal about our family history, and getting the silent treatment anytime I’ve tried to ask questions about my own grandparents or most recent “ancestors” has always bothered me.
I was somewhat nervous as I began tracing my family tree through census records, obituaries, genealogy websites and databases, vital records, cemeteries and death records, because I wondered if I would find some deep dark secret the family wanted kept secret.
No such secrets have been discovered, but since I started an Ancestry family tree and began gathering more information and clues into my family’s past, I’ve discovered living cousins and other relatives I never knew about before. It also came as quite a shock to me when I learned quite by accident that my childhood best friend was actually a cousin, and my friend’s mother was my grandmother’s sister.
Research Your Family Tree
It still seems odd to me that no one in my family ever discussed or mentioned how our families were connected during all the years we spent playing and associating with each other. When I made this shocking discovery, I asked my brothers if they knew we were related to these newfound family members, and they were just as shocked as I was.
Tracing your family tree takes time, effort and determination, but it is doable. Most genealogy experts will tell you to talk to your relatives and gather as much information as possible to help you in your quest to build a family tree or genealogy website.
Unfortunately for me, family hasn’t been very helpful along those lines. I’ve had to become somewhat of an amateur private detective to find information on surnames, maiden names, birthdates, marriage dates, old addresses and phone numbers etc, just to begin building my family genealogy history to pass onto my children and grandchildren.
I want to learn about my grandparents and great-grandparents. I want to know where they lived, how they made a living, what they looked like, what kind of people they were. It was about a year ago that for the very first time in my life, I saw photos of my grandmother and grandfather on my father‘s side of the family, and only because of researching my family’s history. Hopefully I will also find photos of my grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side, because for some unknown reasons, no such photos were ever on display while I was growing up.
My grandparents on both sides of the family had already died before I was born, so I have never personally experienced the joys of having known or associated with a Grandma or Grandpa. I want to know that, if my grandparents and great-grandparents were alive when I was a little girl, would they have been kind and loving towards me or if they were the old, crabby sort of grandparents who would “shoo” grandchildren away with a swish of their hand.
Family Genealogy Records
I found a lot of information about my family history from online genealogy census records, but you have to be careful to verify records before simply adding the information to your family tree. Some people choose to keep handwritten genealogy records in an old Bible or journal, such as when a baby is born or someone gets married, but over time the records can get lost, burned in a house fire, or simply forgotten.
There are free genealogy search engines that help to find your family tree and some details, but after spending so much time researching via search engines and getting questionable results, I finally broke down and got myself the family tree maker and I’m glad I did. Building my family history became much faster and easier all at the same time.
Once I had added various facts and details to the family genealogy software on my computer, I eventually decided to merge my family tree onto an online tree maker at Ancestry.com. I wish I had known about Ancestry’s family tree tools much sooner, because my genealogy research on the Ancestry website is where I discovered I had relatives I never knew were relatives.
If you’re going to research your family tree, know that the results can sometimes be quite surprising, especially if you end up finding out about some deep dark family secret you weren’t supposed to know about.
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