Climb Your Family Tree is one part personal blog about my family history and one part genealogy resource to help you find your ancestors too. But why might someone like you be interested in their ancestry? Does your family history really matter?
If genealogy is new to you, here are a few reasons you might want to consider climbing your own family tree:
- When researching death certificates of recent ancestors you might learn about your family medical history. You could find trends that are worth discussing with your doctor and you might be able to alter behaviors now to prevent certain conditions. We know more now about preventing some diseases than they did during your ancestors’ times. But you need to arm yourself with information to better understand your risks. Researching your family history can help you do that.
- Researching your family history could help you reconnect with more distant family members. In today’s social media age, reconnecting is easy. But to do that you have to know who to look for. Genealogy research can open new doors. Even if you’re not interested in reconnecting, maybe a parent or grandparent is and your family history research can help them.
- You might gain a new understanding of your parents or grandparents when you have a better picture of what their lives were like.
- It’s also possible that you’ll simply uncover interesting stories and things you never knew about your family before. I’ve discovered everything from pirate ancestry to puritans who discovered several towns and cities here in the United States (New England). If you have a sense of adventure and a strong curiosity, you might want to climb your family tree for the sheer thrill of it.
No matter why you’re interested in your ancestry, Climb Your Family Tree is here to help you through the research and road blocks that we all experience from time to time as amateur genealogists.
It’s funny how easily I’ve connected with cousins since posting on a genealogy site. It’s really helped in finding photos and documents, too. You’d be surprised what people have tucked away.
I recently came across a similar situation on Ancestry.com. Someone had a photo of my mother’s grandfather (who is very difficult to track b/c he avoided the census and other records like the plague) and his parents. We’re not sure who in the family this guy was tied to. I tried reaching out to him a few weeks ago, but as of now he hasn’t gotten back to me. I’m hoping he has more and that I can make a research trip up to talk to whoever has these photos in NY.