The Why of Family History

 It's been a long time since I posted so I figured it would be time to start this blog again. In my years of doing family history the most common questions I hear are is "where do I start?" And "what benefit is there to studying my family history?" Then the common question I get as a freelancer is, "why should I pay you to do this research for me?"

All are very valid questions. 

The best place to start is to answer the where and the what questions with the "why." Why should I start family history and why is there a benefit?

How many of you could tell me memories of your grandparents? What were their likes and dislikes? Did they participate in the military? Where were they born? Do you know childhood memories that they have? 

It is humans nature to tell stories and when one person has a story another person may have another story they may want to add or maybe be one of those, "well my grandfather served in WWII and got two purple hearts for being on the USS Arizona and surviving." Those types of people.

I personally never had ancestors that served in WWII. And honestly, if you don't have war veterans in WWII that's okay. There are other ways people can connect such as the Civil War. With enough research, most people can discuss ancestors they had in the Civil War, Emancipation, whether they had Confederate ancestors and Union ancestors, etc. 

People's ancestors may have also lived in similar places and recognize certain events. I digress. Why is there a benefit to family history? I believe family history can create a bond in people. It can give a reason why families act in certain ways, why they have certain beliefs, what caused them to move from one state to another. 

Then again, I may not be able to adequately express why family history is important. I feel passionate about it, so much so I want to work with Ancestry. But some people may not have that desire. Perhaps siblings, parents, or other relatives hurt them in a way that made them think, "why do I want a connection with them?" Well, I don't blame you if you do. Before I was adopted, I harbored those same feelings. Why should I care? I came to this conclusion. My ancestors were not responsible for how their descendants acted. With that in mind, I did careful research of my family the best I knew how and as I learned I made mistakes. Doing family history for about nine years now I learned a lot and made a lot of mistakes, but I learned from them. In the coming days, I will share some of these stories and how the research was done. It was difficult, I can guarantee that you will have a brick wall ancestor; unless you're one of the rare ones where family history was talked about a lot.

I can promise that once you start family history and look what's there, the desire to fill in holes will creep in and you'll catch the bug. Now, if you do it, and you don't catch the bug. That's okay. Some people aren't researchers. Asking just the questions is okay too.