genealogy is the most wonderful of pastimes i love it and you should too
genealogy is one of the fastest growing hobbies in the western world as more and more people discover
the exhilarating and slightly addictive nature of ancestor hunting it's like an ongoing mystery with
clues you have to discover and then put together to come to conclusions about your family's past
the mystery never ends because there is no end to the amount of time you
can potentially go back in history with your family research yet the more you can discover
the more complete picture of your family you can put together
it's insanely rewarding and the more you do it the more you will want to do it that's a given
like i said there are plenty of reasons to love genealogy here are some of the best reasons you
shouldn't need any more motivation to get you started or recommit you to your ancestor hunt than
these reasons here if you love a good mystery you will love genealogy if you love scavenger hunts
word find puzzles mystery novels or even video games with epic quests where you have to search
for clues and piece them all together to reveal the solution you will adore genealogy it is like
all of those things and more there is nothing quite like tracking down an unknown ancestor you
may have traced a particular family line back as far as you think you possibly can and it may have
been easy then you get to a certain point where you can't trace it back any farther at first
there are a lack of records no one in your family knows anything and the parents of your
great great grandfather suddenly seem like they will never make themselves known to you
to a genealogist that isn't defeat that's just motivation for digging up those roots
even if it takes years you may spend a long time analyzing census records digging around
in courthouses and archive buildings walking the land where your great-great-grandfather
lived as an adult or where you heard he lived as a child you will search military records
land patent records tax records and research his neighbors you will look at the names of
his children for clues as to his parentage and you will visit old family cemeteries to look for clues
eventually a name will appear just when you thought the name was forever lost to history
you will get a name for a father or mother or even both for your great great grandfather and
it will be one of the most euphoric feelings in the world you will have achieved victory over
the infamous genealogy brick wall and rescued an ancestor or two from the midst of history
bringing them into the light and back to virtual life once more you now know more about your
great-great-grandfather and have the names of the parents to go on to research even further
into your family history than you ever imagined you could soon you'll be zooming down that family
line and eventually you'll start another line and will go on the hunt for another ancestor even with
ancestors you already know about anything new you find on them in old newspaper records or anywhere
else will seem like a victory to you as it will place another piece in the puzzle of their lives
making them a more whole person to you and to future generations doing this for people you
never met but who contributed to making you is the most wonderful fulfilling thing in the world
who says genealogy is a passive pastime it is a thrilling adventure if you let it be you don't
have to do it all from home riding away for vital records and researching on the genealogy websites
on your computer you can take it on the road into the field and discover some amazing things you
would never know about if you didn't get out there and in the thick of it whether you go on your own
or take the whole family real genealogy is an adventure you will want to go on again and again
soon you'll find that all your vacations revolve around what kinds of genealogy research you can do
in a particular place vacations without genealogy will start to seem boring once you've had a
genealogy adventure in the field you will want to do it every time you go somewhere away from home
when you travel to where your ancestors live you can find things you just can't find online you can
get burial maps of cemeteries at city halls or local historical societies that will alert you
to any previously unknown relatives such as the unmarked graves of children who died as babies
or very young you might also discover some new in-laws aunts uncles and even great-grandparents
you might also discover some very ancient and enlightening things for example i went on a
genealogy road trip once and discovered a large cache of ancient papers related to my family
that particular branch of my family had a long history in this tiny virginia town going back
to the late 1600s in town archives i did a search of the family surname on the computer and came up
with a hit that the historian went to get for me it turns out this particular hit was located in a
box in the basement and people hardly ever looked at it inside was a treasure trove i never imagined
would still exist there were original papers regarding this branch of my family going back
to their very beginnings in this town some with remnants of old red wax seals still on them i held
200 plus year-old papers in my hands and traced my ancestors signatures with my fingertips there were
land deeds personal letters from their friends and relatives old account books for weaving
one of the family ancestors did and the original copy of a will of a nine times great-grandfather
i knew a later will existed but the original was unknown and because the original will mention this
ancestor's wife and the later will written four years later did not it allowed me to place her
death within a four year period when her date of death had previously been unknown to any degree
these are the types of things you cannot find online you must experience them in person and
getting out there and getting out there and having genealogical adventures is the only way to do it
when you're out in the field doing genealogy you can get in touch with your ancestors in a way you
never would imagine you actually start to see them as real once living people not just names
on a sheet of paper or computer program it is actually possible to develop relationships with
your ancestors the more you get to know them and you get a better idea of who you are where
you came from and why and how by getting close to the ancestors who are responsible for making you
it's like making new friends or getting to know a reclusive aunt the more you discover about them
the more people you have in your life to love you really can start to love those ancestors and you
will be surprised that the close relationships you develop with some of them you will be naturally
drawn to some more than others and that's okay and normal out in the field you really get an
idea of how your ancestors lived you will go to the towns often still very small and rural
where they lived look at old maps to discover where their homesteads were and sometimes discover
they are still there visit the cemeteries where they and their immediate relatives are buried
which puts you as close to them as you can possibly get on this planet
and discover old documents they signed and be amazed that you're touching something they touched
it is an amazing journey and one you will take many times for lots of ancestors once you get
into it do it once and you'll be hooked for sure you will naturally meet some living relatives in
the course of your research who you never knew existed before you started your search
the process of seeing just how you are connected is exciting in itself
as you see the generations tangle as they move out from your common ancestor and into the present day
many of these people will have or will know people who have information documents and even photos to
help and add to your ancestor research that you couldn't have found any other way these are the
artifacts that stay in families and don't go into archive buildings or historical societies they
are the hidden artifacts of genealogy sometimes you will be the one with the hidden artifacts
giving this information is just as rewarding as getting it i once met a 72 year old
woman who was related to me by marriage my great-aunt's husband my great uncle by marriage
had an older brother who died at age 22 leaving behind a one and a half year old daughter she
disappeared out of the family with her mother i'd been looking for her for years and found her when
a letter sent to the church our family attended inquiring about her relatives was forwarded to me
it turns out she'd never seen so much as a photo of her father i not only had photos of her father
inherited after my great uncle died at age 87 i had a wallet and a bible that had belonged to him
i sent these things to her as i felt they belonged with her to hand down to her seven children she
called me crying with happiness when she received these things telling me how much they meant to her
to finally meet a father she didn't remember she also sent me flowers we became good friends after
that despite the many decades of age difference between us and we stay in touch to this day
that's another benefit of meeting new relatives you may make deep lasting friendships with them
as you can see genealogy has a lot to recommend it as a hobby it can also become more than just a
hobby it can become somewhat of a calling when you do genealogy of the real very thorough exhaustive
kind where you dig up every piece of information on an ancestor you can find you are bringing these
people back into the memory of the world or at least a select few people who are interested
these are people who may have been lost to history and forgotten by their descendants for generations
you are honoring them by bringing them back into the light and putting the details of
their lives back together remember these were living people once real people who
actually walked the earth they deserved to be remembered by their descendants
just as you would want to be remembered in a very real way you are doing a service to them
by pulling them out of the obscurity of time and back into the present to reintroduce them to the
many descendants they produced the thrill of the hunt the adventure and the excitement of
getting to know your ancestors and living relatives you've never met
are all wonderful reasons to love genealogy you'll never know just how much you will love genealogy
until you try it just get out there and get started you will soon be a genealogy enthusiast
it's fun exciting interesting and one of the most rewarding things you will ever do
irish naming patterns were very precise for about two centuries
next time on the ancestralfindings.com podcast i'll show you how you can use
the patterns to find your irish ancestors
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