I'm always curious what sparked a person's interest to start researching their family history. Did a family member tell an interesting story? Did one of your friends regale you with a story about their own family that started you wondering about your own ancestors?
For me it was 4th grade. Our teacher assigned us a project to trace our family history. Before starting, she asked us if we knew where our families came from. When she asked me, I naively said, "England, I think". I presumed because I spoke English, I must be English.
When I went home that night, I made my first step into exploring my genealogy. As it turned out, I wasn't English at all (or so my parents told me, as it turned out I do have 1 3rd great-grandfather who was English), I was mostly German and Irish. Honestly if I had turned out to be English, I probably would have accepted that, and moved on. However, my 4th grade self wanted to know why my ancestors would come here, not speaking the language. To me, that was an incredulous thing to do, and not something I understood. At that moment I was intrigued.
Hi Katie! Great idea for a blog. I've checked out your other blogs and they are great too. I started my famly history research about 16 years ago when I was in my 30's following the death of my grandfather.
ReplyDeleteI think it's awesome that you've been involved in family history research for 11 years and you're only 25! I like your attitude that genealogy isn't a "retirement hobby."