Genealogy – Learn About Your Family’s History

Why is Learning about My Family History Important?

All of the families have their own historical past. You might want to discover your family’s genealogy, which is essentially the story of what has brought you here in this world at present. Through this endeavor, you will learn more about yourself and life in general.

Unearthing the history of your ancestors will also mean that you get to explore some interesting stories that will be worth sharing with your relatives and friends. This could be a greatly stimulating and educative conversation for the next time you attend a family gathering, wedding, etc.

Taking Out the Time

Admittedly, while we do feel the need to discover the lives of our ancestors and get connected to our past, we don’t take out the time to accomplish this goal. For most of us, there simply isn’t much time to stop and reflect, as there is always something that holds us back. This could be work, family, or anything else that keeps us rooted firmly in the present.

However, always remaining busy can also leave us feeling empty and alone. This is why, for some people, getting to know his or her family’s history is the antidote to sadness.

Plus, there is a saying that whoever doesn’t learn from history is forced to repeat it. Getting to know about our ancestors and the possible mistakes they might have made could give us some insight into our own lives. This way, we might end up learning something valuable about ourselves that could possibly end up improving the quality of our lives.

All this is why one should take out the time from their busy schedule and look up their family tree. They might be surprised by what they learn, and the information could prove to be of great use later on.

The Good in Discovering and Learning

People who are passionate about tracking their family’s roots are motivated by the activity of research. This is why they’re so interested in finding additional ways to push back the family history by a few more generations. In fact, there are some who find gratification in doing these things.

You may chance upon while looking back at your family’s history beyond finding out some birth and death dates. It’s also more than extending your pedigree.

For instance, sometimes we find it hard to connect to other living members of our family or clan, let alone to our deceased aunts, uncles, or great-aunts and great-uncles. Through finding out about these ancestors and the lives they lived, we can embark on a journey of family connections.

Who knows, we might even find some long-lost family members living nearby! For those who crave the connection of a large, closely-knit clan, this activity could result in great blessings.

Family’s History

Finding and learning about family history gives us beautiful lessons about the fundamentals of humanity. To some extent, it helps us in coping with our own challenges. Sometimes, we might be so preoccupied with our own issues that we don’t remember the things that hold us together anymore.

Tracing the lives of our ancestors teaches us about a lot of the good virtues that include patience, resilience, and sympathy. These are just fundamental values that define our being human. With so much preoccupation with the rat race and how we’re portrayed on social media, we might end up losing some of these important aspects of ourselves.

Finding out about our ancestors might be able to teach us about showing love and kindness to the people that we encounter every day. This might be because we learn about the kindnesses of our ancestors, along with some of their philanthropic ventures.

For instance, we may find out that our grandparents were the co-founders of a certain charitable organization. Just having this knowledge could make one feel like they should also be concerned about the welfare of the needy.

Even if there’s no record of our ancestors having done something big in the way of charity, simply finding out more about them could put us in a better state of mind. The feeling of being linked with a larger community will hopefully inspire us to reach out to those who need a helping hand.

Finding Joy in the Past

Learning our family’s history also gives us incomparable joy. Through researching our family’s genealogy, we might find some humorous snippets on their everyday lives — their names, their school life, their occupations, and some small funny incidences that make us smile and laugh.

Sometimes, you’ll be surprised to find that your wacky sense of humor or your peculiar way of eating food is inherited from your ancestors. Finding joy in our family’s genealogy will lift our spirits up as well as give us a different outlook on how to perceive happiness in our everyday lives. Tracing our family’s history and learning more about them will complete our existence in this world as a human being. This sense of feeling complete will hopefully help us approach life with a better mindset than before.

Chalking Out Your Family Tree

There’s a reason why children have to work on their family tees and bring them to school every year. Learning about our family history is very important, as we’ve already discussed above. However, this doesn’t mean that we simply leave our family trees in the classroom. Why not bring them home and display them in an artistic and tasteful fashion?

The family tree charts by FreshRetroGallery could be a step in the right direction when it comes to preserving our family tree. Check them out here:

These family tree posters come in twos and have several blanks for personalization. They’d make excellent gifts for new parents, a curious child, or someone with a new home. Hanging these up will help you feel connected to your family and give you a sense of belonging.

Apart from hanging, these family tree charts will also come in handy for scrapbooks, wedding albums, displays for bridal or baby showers, and much more. There are also places for pictures, so you can make this family tree a work of art for a memorable display.

A Fun Family Tradition

If you want to get to know more about your ancestors, why not get the whole family together for a fun-filled session? You might have young children in the family, with inquiring minds who would love to find out more about their personal history.

The next time the family gets together, start a brainstorming session by asking questions about your ancestors. If this picks up enough interest, you might all schedule some trips to the library or any other place which could have more information. Keep a scrapbook as you go, inserting little tidbits of information, pictures, news stories, and other items that help you in learning about your family history.

Conclusion

Genealogy might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but you might want to give it a try at least once. We all come from somewhere, and finding out more about ourselves can really help in a journey of self-discovery. When we’re adopted or have ancestors who emigrated from another country, the history just gets deeper and richer as we go.

Of course, there might also be some disturbing elements that you uproot when looking for information about your past. If that occurs, you might not want to go any further. You may also face some negative effects of that knowledge. While this could result in the need for therapy, you’d hopefully be better off for knowing where you come from.

In all cases, foraying into the past is always a risk. You might find out something ugly about your ancestors, or end up feeling guilty for not living as rich a life as they had. However, remember that you have a lot to give to the world in your own way. Using your family history as a support, you can always make your current and future family members proud.