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Yes, you like genealogy and want to know more about your family tree, but…WHY?
Over the years, I've found many interesting reasons others have for their passion about genealogy and what they want to accomplish during their journey.
We all have our personal reasons as to why we are interested in our ancestors and our heritage.
How many of these reasons fit you?
- You simply want to discover more about where you and yours came from.
- You are the "Keeper of the Family Records" and realize how important information about your heritage is, and you hope one of your children or grandchildren will catch the genealogy bug so you can pass the torch to them one day.
- You want to put your genealogy in a book, even if it is a notebook, and share it with your family.
- You love mysteries, and the thrill of following the clues drive you.
- You want to prove that all your family stories are true.
- You love puzzles, and boy, do you have a big box full of family history puzzle pieces.
Do any of these reasons hit home?
So, tell me about the "Why" of YOUR passion for genealogy:
I would love to hear about it (and so would other members of our Treasure Maps Genealogy family). This can really be inspiring and fun. Please, leave your comments below in the "Leave a Reply" area…
When I was a child, My Grandmother had a picture of a handsome man on the wall. She said it was her father-in-law and told me the stories my late Grandfather had told of his grandparents coming from Germany, his Grandfather serving in the Civil War from Indiana, and his father and family coming to west Michigan from Muncie, Indiana.
My Father was kind of amused at how I wanted to know more - I was 10 years old. He decided to take me to the local library, which had a local and family history section, and see just how interested I really was. I spent at least 1 Saturday a month at the library for some time.
That was 48 years ago. My husband and I now travel the country in our RV, seeing the country and various genealogical collections. We just completed our 1st trip to Salt Lake, where we stayed 2 months.
I have accumulated 146 family group sheets, untold reams of information, proved some family stories, disproved others, met relatives we never knew existed, found descendants of family members who were assumed dead, found Pilgrims and zealots, womanizers and governors (okay - some of them may be the same people!).
It has been a vastly rewarding hobby, providing history lessons to give period and cultural insight to behavior that might not be acceptable today, as well as giving a setting for migration patterns and occupations.
I have led genealogical groups, taught at community centers, lectured locally, and addicted my husband.
Now the question is what to do with all this stuff? I’m leaning towards a free-standing html publication on DVD, which would include PDF images of all of my documentation.
I always was one to be the Investigative Type, so after meeting my fiancee his sister had been on her computer and I had ask her what she was doing, and she said, “genealogy.” She begin to show me how to start searching, and little by little, I became hooked.
Now I am on this journey to finding my family - one person in particular, my grandmother. Hopefully I will find out everything I can about her time here. I found out she passed away but I am trying to find out if she had any children, so it could help my Mom, who has Bone Marrow Cancer. It would be A miracle if there was even one sister or brother out there. I’ll never give up.
When I was young there was a wooden framed document dated 1866 from the King of Wuerttemberg to Johann Christian HAGNER hanging on the wall at my Grandparents house. I always wondered what that was, it peaked my interest. I found out that it was presented to my grandfather, Johann Christian Hagner, after the Austro-Prussian War (also called the Seven Weeks War, the Unification War, or the German Civil War).
Wow! Now I really wanted to know more. I wanted to know all about all my relatives, where they lived and what they did. This one framed award and my Grandfather’s family stories sparked my interest in genealogy when I was just 8 years old. Now that wooden frame hangs on my office wall. It reminds me of how I got hooked on genealogy.
My Grandfather had put together a photo album of various people in the family. Every time, I visited my grandparents in Florida, I would flip through the pages of the photo album and wanted to learn more about the people in the photo album. I had been born with a hearing loss that caused me to “miss” hearing many family stories; but seeing the pictures helped me learn more about my relatives. I depend on lip-reading to “hear” so having the person’s name written under each picture made it easier for me to understand the relationships.
It all started when my daughter was 3 months old. She would be the only child and I wanted her to learn that she had more family out there. That was 28 years ago.
I began with a handwritten family group chart that I hand copied out of a book. It was tough going as my Dad rarely talked about his family and we had lost contact with them after he passed. Here it is 27 years later, thousands of relatives later, tall tales sorted through and amazingly enough, contact with my long lost cousins on my dads side. Ironically we’d been searching for each other for 30 years!
I still have the hand printed first group sheets and the first hints that I found. Yes, the computer and the internet have been a wonderful tool but I remember the excitement of digging through actual records, holding old musty paper in my hand and the wonderment of learning about the ancestors.
And that is why I still do it. The mystery, the sleuthing and finally “getting my man/woman.” They are the “stuff” inside me, the genetic memory, the reason why for so many things. And I thank them every time I discover something new.
I feel that our ancestors went through a lot of work and trouble to get us where we are today. No other generation will endure what they did. I want to preserve it for the young ones before all is lost. All our ancestors that suffered the trials of pioneering are dead or dying, and they will soon all be gone; I don’t want them to be forgotten.
I am interested in genealogy because it is the recipe that made me.
When I was a child, my grandfather’s sister started sending family imformation out to various family members. Her information was written by hand, and she used carbon paper to make multiple copies. I think I usually got the bottom copy. I was a strange child — even then I had a file cabinet to keep my paper “stuff”. I did now know exactly what to do with the information she sent, but I kept every piece of it. She planted the seed in me to know about my ancestors.
I am an only-child. I used to think I did not have many relatives. Now I correspond with many relatives around the world.
I have no children, but I have many cousins with whom to share information. Also, I have been able to document several new Revolutionary War ancestors and several new children of Revolutionary War ancestors with the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution), to help future applicants of DAR and SAR become members.
Our ancestor were amazing people who moved into new territories, overcame difficulties, made lives and helped to establish this country. I don’t them to be forgotten.
I started doing genealogy research as I wanted to find the ancestors that were Christians and prayed for their future descendants. I am excited and thankful to have been successful in my research.
There are lots of little reasons for my genealogy work but for the most part it’s the only way I know of to keep my mom’s wishes in writing about our family that she always wanted me to do. She use to always tell me that no matter how bad things were I could always find something good or funny about it and make the hard part seem not so bad.
I come from a large family of 14 children and as a child I always wanted to be off by myself (away from the noise) so I didn’t spend much time around home and never got to know most of my Aunts, Uncles or cousins and my Grandparents died when I was still very young. Off and on I would sit with my mom as she’d tell me about all these people who were related but it never sunk in much. After mom died in 1998 I really started thinking about writing that book but realized that I didn’t know all that much about the family. So, I started looking for answers as to where she came from and how did our family get started in the first place.
Since then I’ve been doing lots of research on not only my parents but my husbands as well. It’s been a very interest adventure with lots of twists and turns. Sometimes I hit up on some really interesting family members and then I get turned around to find I’ve found a whole new branch to explore.
It’s fun, exciting, frustrating and some times down right crazy but that’s what keeps it so interesting.
I keep telling my husband that some day I will find that link that proves we are kissing cousins! LOL
I started about twenty years ago. When I was a small child I saw a lot of my Dads family, then when I was seven my Mom and Dad got a divorce.
I started looking for the ones I remembered.
Dad wouldn’t talk much about his family except how his Mom and Dad died before I was born.
They were all from the same county I was born in, so I had a good start. “I was hooked”
Then when my husband said he had always heard he was related to the Fanchers that was massacred in Utah, and there were books written about it, I just had to track it down and sure enough he was related. His was easy.
That really hooked me.
Mine has not been so easy but the thrill of finding someone will always get to me.
It all started when my Mom tried to find out what her mother did to earn money. No one remembered and since I had the most computer experience, she asked me. It turns out that Grandma and her sisters all packed cigarettes … and the rest is history. I am HOOKED.
I simply want to discover more about where my parents came from and share it with my 6 siblings their families, and my family of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. I have only bits and pieces of information that I have gleaned from a conversation here and there written down on scraps of paper and want to see it as a whole.
Also, although I met all of my father’s siblings I know nothing about his youth and life in Europe and I am curious!
Got a question. Do we not have men working this escapade?
I am the lone ranger of genealogy in both sides of the “family house”, but that is o K. I now have a son that it has bitten prety hard.
When I was a lad, my paternal grandfather lived with us. He taught me to hunt, fish and trap. While we were killing time and the dog was seeking the ‘possums, I would ask him , “who was your grandpa”? Since I loved him so very much, I wanted to know about his. He would say, “I never had a grandpa”. That worried m, because I thought everybody had one. But he did not. It took me over twenty-five years after he had “passed” to find out. TOO late to tell him, but I have told all the family that will listen.
Why did he not know? Well, his grandfather was killed in the Civil War at Shiloh, in 1862, he was born 1880. So, now I knew.
But it set my claws on edge and i have been digging every since.
Be careful what you hear from family members. I have found the stories are like that person wanted you to know, not what the truth really was. I got serious in 1968.
I began genealogy in high school by asking my family. I’m still at it 55 years later. I have draws, boxes, notebooks and folders of stuff. I have also owned and do own several genealogy programs.
I would like to get something compiled before I leave this earth.
Thanks for sharing. Your insights and thoughtful answers are amazing.
Long-time Treasure Maps Genealogy reader, Phyllis Porter, also shared these comments with me. They were so special, I wanted to make sure that we all could read them.
“I am so impressed by what our ancestors did, and I tell people all the time: Just think about setting out into the unknown frontier — with nothing but your God, your wits, you willpower, your family (or alone), a few tools and natural resources to build a home, clear the land, raise crops and livestock, raise a family, and make a life.
They may had traveled with others, but it was basically up them to do what needed to be done. They had to make, grow or build everything. Most of them lived long and prospered. And they did it with no Home Depot, no grocery stores, hardly any means of communication, no electricity, etc.
Their motto had to be ‘If it is going to be, it is up to ME’.” (Phyllis Porter)
I am interested in Family History because no one else in my family seems to be interested. I remember being in school and having a lesson on family and we had to bring in at least 3 generations. I was the one in class that always 4 or 5 depending on which side of the tree it was on. Now some of the older folks say “you’re not really interested in all that old stuff”. Yes! I want to know every bit of that old stuff.
My father’s family came to Texas from Christian County Kentucky in 1852, which makes my son a 6th generation Texan, am I the only one of my family that is interested? In the current generations I just might be, in the future generations I hope all the time, effort, information, and the countless hours of digging will not be lost.
Am I the only one that is interested in the fellow who left his homeland and landed in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to start a new life in the USA. How many thousands walk in this FREE country because George Keller had the courage to leave all he had ever known to go into the great unknown. I want to know all the brothers, sisters, cousins, steps, halves, married into’s there are to know in my family. That’s why I am interested in family history for all the folks out there who aren’t. Someone has to gather the information while someone still remembers.
I was adopted at the age of six months, along with three brother and one sister, all under the age of five. My story is somewhat different in that my adoptive parents were my paternal grandparents. My adoptive parents have passed away but, I remember hearing stories of different family members and thought I would see if I could find out how they fit in the family tree, that was three years ago.
I started genealogy as an older person to pass on my good fortune. I grew up with 2 grandmothers who were born in the days of the covered wagon and died after man was in space.
My Dad’s mother did not tell stories but needed something to do. Her husband died when she was pregnant with her 7th child. After raising them and putting them all through college she never learned how to use free time. Mother had her write down her memories of her life.
My Mother’s mother was the Sanchez of the family and I grew up with many family stories from making extra money to coming of kerosene and cars and world fairs. She also wrote down her life story adding tales I don’t think she told or I hadn’t paid attention.
We lived in different states than either my parents or in-laws so I am adding my life story.
Then I got interested to try to integrate all the stories into several volumes so that They would meld into one whole.
My Dad’s family had been forced into doing a genealogy for his family to discover relationships and I got curious to see how those who came before lived their lives and if any of our traditions could also be traced back to maybe the originating country.
I am now addicted.
I became interested when my mother told me that her aunt had kicked her daughter in the stomach, and she died from it. I wanted to find out if this was so. (No, have not found the answer as of yet).
I was told had relatives in Montana, was related to the Rockerfellers–both are true. Only the Rockerfellers leg went off in a different direction! I have found two cousins since starting to do genealogy. One in Oregon and one in Canada. The one in Canada had spent a lot of time trying to find my father, so he was very excited when I sent emails to several of the Jekill name I was looking for. And as most of everyone else, am hooked!!!
My father passed when I was 18mos.old, my mother when I was 13. As far back as I can remember, I always hung on listening to any family related details, since Nana (maternal gm) always lived with my 2 brothers and I. We were raised in FL and I never met anyone of Dad’s family that lived in Mo. and Wis.
Nana came to live with me at 80 years of age. About 30 years ago, I went to an LDS Family History Center and looked up my Paternal Gm. SSappl and was hooked! I’ve since met cousins, learned generations of health, history,accumulated pictures of ancestors and found where my gr.son gets his height, who favors whom, and just love the detective work/rewards!! I will pass all down one day, and hope when I’m gone someone will take interest to continue.
1) I love history and have found lots of stories about my family while searching. I found farmers to kings and they all have a story to tell.
2) I like to solve genealogy mysteries. I just found the mother and father of my GG Grandmother by analyzing my research and census records. Took five years and it all came together in one day. Wow!
3) I feel it a responsibility to record and document our family history for future generations. I’m glad our ancestors did it for us.
4) It’s fun.
My dad was always interested in genealogy. He traveled to different counties to do research at the courthouses, but he really was never able to get very far with putting together his family tree. He was only able to get to two sets of great grandparents. After he died I began to think about his research. I decided to do a little searching myself since I had a computer. I would occasionally work on his tree for a little while and then I began to piece together more and more. Suddenly I was hooked! One night I discovered one of my lines had been posted all the way back to fifteenth century England! I was printing until the wee hours! I had an interest before, but now I had a passion! What started out as a way to honor my father and his interest has become a fulltime commitment to being the family historian. I am constantly hounding my one remaining aunt and uncle for their memories and pictures. They seem so pleased that someone is interested in their family history. It has helped me to connect with them in a way that I never would have otherwise. What a thrill! What a privilege!
I never knew my Birth Father and my relatives made sure that I knew nothing….Wrong for a
child to be kept in the dark.
So for 50 years I searched. When my children were grown I took time to travel to the town where I was born ( my birth certificate was wrong) so my job was not easy. I located divorce papers that had been served to him in a small town in Oregon…I did the unconventional, and ran an ad in the local paper. After 40 years, what were the odds?
In small towns people read a paper cover to cover, and knowing this I proceeded. My ad was answered, and my family tree now has many branches.
I would highly recommend running ads and getting an unlimited phone service as I now am able to pick up the phone when I get a lead. It has opened up a wealth of information. I am also passionate about helping adopted children, and would like to see more adopted children retain their birth name as it is the key to their past.
If I can help anyone, I am happy to do so.
Charles,
As Steve will attest, you are not the only male in this game. I’m glad you’re son has taken up the call!
I got seriously started by inheriting my Grandmother’s work after she passed. But I think I actually got bitten with the bug way back in my youth, although I didn’t quite know it then.
When I was young, our family would always summer in Wyoming with my dad’s sister’s family. Quite often my grandparents would also come and we would have these week-long campouts in the Tetons. There, family stories were told and I was fascinated. I think that’s where I picked up my interest in history in general.
So after I received my grandmother’s research, I started in on my own using the internet, a tool my grandmother never had at her disposal. At the time, Ancestry was just getting started and I used RootsWeb quite extensively. I learned that the genealogical community is an amazingly giving community, quite willing to help whenever and wherever necessary.
As I was gently guided (and sometimes poked and prodded) through the do’s and don’ts of genealogical research, I learned not only of family history, but of U.S. and World history and how my tiny family fit into the larger scheme of things.
History is a fascinating subject all by itself, but throw an ancestor or two into the mix and history becomes personal. I can imagine myself being there and wondering if I would have acted the same way. Imagine the young, curious minds that could be unlocked if history could be taught this way in schools…from a personal level!
While my research has come to a standstill, I have had the honor and privilege to help others in the manner that I have been helped. It’s especially rewarding when I can teach someone to do the research themselves, and watch as their eyes widen when they’ve made a connection all by themselves!
Genealogy is much, much more than family history research. It’s an adventure that takes one into the past and turns it into the present.
That, my friends, is a truly remarkable thing.
For as long as I can remember I was so fascinated by the Indian heritage and I never knew why. After researching my family tree, I found that my Great Grandmother was 100% Cherokee Indian. I believe I’ve traced her as a child but hit such a brickwall on my Indian heritage.
I never really knew much of my Grandmother B’s family(Great Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, ect) as she never would talk about her side of the family. The last time I visited with my Gramma B. before she passed away she got so mad at me when I mentioned being Cherokee and she screamed, “I’m not Cherokee, I’m Iroquois!”.
I’ll never forget that visit with my Gramma B. I may never know for sure, as most of her family has passed away. Although my genealogy research has come to a standstill for the time being, I will continue with it again soon as I have in the past. I feel genealogy is embedded in my blood and I can not completely walk away. I want my children to know so much more about their families than I had.
I was born in 1944. Years ago my father told me the “fairy tale” version of the origin of our Italian family name MONTESI. The story went that a nobleman fell in love with a peasant girl but was betrothed to another. The nobleman and the peasant girl got together and created a child. before she gave birth the peasant woman went into the mountains to have the child…she named him MONTESI which the story goes means “child of the mountains” That started a spark of interest as to who my ancestors were. my father had put in my baby book his and my Moms side of the tree with dates birth and deaths, and places. I did not realize what I had.
The interest lay dormant for a while till I was grown and married (about 1979). A friend, very much interested in genealogy, asked me to go with her on a trip to our state capital (Frankfort KY)while she did some research. I looked up my Mothers side (CLARY) since she and I were born in KY and was overwhelmed with the long list that confronted me. So out of curiosity I looked up my then Husband’s name REXROAT. WOW a treasure trove.. a woman from Washington state was doing research and printing a newsletter which was in the archives… My Husband’s father and grandfather were there with their ancestors. I went home and was telling my Mother-in-law about it and she proceeded to print out on note paper her family tree back 5 generations. That did it I was new to computing but I went out a purchased Family tree Maker (ver 3 I believe) and built a tree.
About 10 years later while visiting Reed, Kentucky (the CLARY hometown area) for their annual 4th July Burgoo and barbque mutton cookout at ST Augustine church, I again got lucky. Distant relatives had done a book on the people buried in the cemetery there. (most related to me in some way). Along with the name they had “stories” told to them by their Aunt my mother’s double cousin. Oh the joy
At the time I was only interested in my immediate family. Then about 1990 married to my second husband, LOVE, his Aunts visited. The family “tale” they told was that my husbands great-grand father was a chicken thief and had taken his wife’s Maiden name as his Surname….hmmm. I never have been able to prove or disprove this but he cannot be accounted for, YET!!
I love a good mystery and genealogy is the greatest one of all. Many clues out there and with the progress of computing they are getting solved. I still have to do a lot of sleuthing since many out there are content to add any thing to make their info fit. I now branch out from brothers and sisters since someone will maybe find a link and give me a clue to solving a Mystery in my tree. Indeed I have gotten connections for the MONTESI’s, CLARY’s, REXROAT’s and LOVE’s and made many friends. I named my tree WE ARE FAMILY because I believe we are all connected. I feel I am the keeper of the flame for my future family generations. Recently my husband passed and I moved to Illinois to be with my mother, my new neighbor is related to my ex-father-in-law (REXROAT). Needless to say I am hooked.
When I was in my 20s I came across two pieces of paper at my mother’s house that had the pedigree for my maternal grandmother’s family. The wife of the oldest one listed had four children die before the age of 2 before she finally had the first one who lived to adulthood. I always felt so bad for this women who lost so many children. But, I never saw the papers again and it passed from my mind.
When I was thinking of retiring, I realized that I needed something to do afterward. I had to do a lot of researching in my job and one day, out of the blue, I thought about genealogy and my ancestral grandmother. I began by taking classes for beginning, intermediate, and then advanced genealogy with the goal of writing a family history. That was 13 years ago. Since then I have become such a history buff. Yes, I have names and places, but trying to put their lives together is what has held my attention. I never thought I’d enjoy visiting libraries, historical societies, courthouses, cemeteries, etc. My wonderful husband goes with me almost everywhere I want to go for research and is developing an interest in his own family line.
Put this together with my other hobby of scrapbooking and I have really found my niche.
I want to thank you, Robert Ragan, for all the things I’ve learned from you. Genealogy, it seems, not only requires the research, but you are continually learning new things about people, places, and events. I am currently writing about one of my lines and one of my husband’s lines and hope to put a copy in our local library so it won’t be lost forever. My family is interested in the results, but not yet how to acquire them. They are still young and busy with their families. I don’t know if someone will be interested in what I have done or not. I’m still trying to cultivate that, the thought that it will end with me doesn’t stop me from finding out what I can for my own interest and benefit.
I started back in 1974 when I was asking grandparents for infor. My sister had collected that info before me and she sent and folder with a little info from 1799, the earliest. 1992 I was laid off so started doing the charts on each family and just got hooked. I put it down again and I started again 1997 after my son died at 18 and I really took off from there. Started visiting court houses. And as you say the rest is history.
Pat
I got into Genealogy because my husband is adopted and I was interested in finding his Birth family. Then Relized I didn’t know much about my own family History. Thank You Robert for your Dedication and Hard Work in helping all of us Genelogy Buffs.
I started researching my roots to find out about my family history. My parents never spoke much about family, and for reasons I will never understand my parents did not communicate with most of the family. In learning my family history, I found one of my sisters sister had another father and I found the detective work to find the right information was exciting. Like finding parts of a puzzle. Much is left to find, but there is much already found. Now I would like to organize all the information that I have in a way that can be shared with my children and grandchildren.
I started doing genealogy because I wanted to know more about my birth family and my Native American roots. At the time, I was adopted at the age of six and did not know much about the beginning of my life.
I finally got the courage to go to DCF in Connecticut to find my birth family. On February 14, 2006 I got back together with my birth mother and my dad’s sister. My dad’s sister was my Aunt Bernice. I started to tell her about my searching for my family history and she laughed because she and her husband, my uncle Ray were doing genealogy too. I guess what is in our genes does pass onto our offspring even when we have no contact much of their lives.
I learned so much from her and was hooked on this awesome hobby known as genealogy. I don’t work on my genealogy as much as I would like but I plan to finish it soon so that I can go and concentrate on getting my BCG certification and opening a business in which I can do this hobby for others. What better way to make money than to do what you love.