Ok, so you keep on hearing about folks researching their family record and while you will have thought about it in the past, you aren't quite convinced to go through the difficulties associated with the process. Why would you research family tree anyway?
Some folks have an interest in knowing where they are from, who their ancestors are and what kind of life they lived. Others just wish to have a better appreciation of their past. Some of us have certain genetic medical issues and have an interest in finding out where those features came from. Furthermore, there are lots of others who need to know more about their grandparents now that they are gone, or would like to hand something on to their kids in the form of a family bequest.
It doesn't really matter what possible reasons one might have, the point is that researching one's family history is growing in popularity now a days. The method though can be lengthy and you can't expect to track your lineage back to the medieval times. Some families are fortunate if they can even trace their history back to the Great Depression.
For the most part, one can easily build a family tree round the living members of the family. This may include children mums and dads, grand parents and in a few cases, great grand folks. However , not everyone has this luxury. When you pass the oldest living relative you can ask about your family tree, you have to start where their story finished.
If you know where your grandparents were born, this may be very helpful. The census is done every so often and thru it you will find people who might be directly related to your grandparents. Maybe your grandfather had a sibling they never talk about as it expired at a tender age. These reports regularly contain information like birth and marriage dates as well as work and family sizes.
From this info, you can then start tracing back slowly thru your lineage. However , in most situations, you'll nearly always come across discrepancies, lost information or just plainly inaccurate information. This is often the case particularly regarding immigration where names can change and even ship logs can be incomplete.
For most this has become a past-time. It does take a large period of time to track ones history back through the generations. Perhaps if you cannot find some tid-bit of info, somebody else out there might have stumbled upon that bit of data by accident in their own pursuits. You have to remember that there are millions of people out there just like you that are researching their own family history and you might be dazzled as to how frequently these lines can cross one another.
In the final analysis though, even if you cannot search family tree back to the Great Roman Empire, do not get discouraged because the information you have gathered abut your family's past is priceless and is going to be continuously maintained for the many generations to come.
