My Story of Starting My Family Tree: Inspiration for beginning genealogists and those who need inspiration

I began researching my family tree out of curiosity, after years of not being interested in it whatsoever. I had no idea whatsoever what I was doing. I was beyond clueless.

I have always been the type that figures things out, mostly accidentally. This family tree and genealogy business has been no exception.

It is rather funny. Professional genealogists have been stumped by portions of my family tree, which I have accidentally stumbled upon the answer. So, I am quite blessed and unfortunate, though is has nothing to do with any skill on my part, but on dumb luck, thanks to the grace of God.

If you want to do your family tree, or are, keep digging. Don't give up. And, make searching online and opening up most every link you find. It's been through looking at the links I didn't think would help me at all that have filled in a missing piece.

Read every link online all the way through. You may think most of what is written junk. But, I guarantee there is at least one nugget of good information in most blog posts.

Think of yourself as a private investigator and an explorer. Grab your spyglass and hat. Then, grab your hiking gear and go wandering. Look at other family trees. Look everything up online through an online search. Keep digging. Act like an archaeologist.

Keep the excitement of adventure.

And, then you will grow your family tree.

And, not only that, history will become alive to you and will be a quite exciting and thrilling adventure.

This is what I have done and keeps off the pressure. It makes it enjoyable, not the type of hitting your head against the wall activity.

Online Research

As I research my family tree, and as I research and write this blog, I do extensive online research.

Every name

Every place

Every date

Every event

I look up all of those online and I try to learn as much information as possible as I go. And, I always ask myself the question as I do online research for genealogy and my family tree is:

Who are they, what happened, when, why, and what was their life like?

Then, I follow up with: What does that mean for me, and for us, today?

I will try to include links as I go for now to help you to do your own research as well.

Oh! I forgot to mention. With every place, when online I enter the place name and hit search. Then, I look at the map and at images, as well as at the websites and blogs about the place. I like to picture it as much as possible. It helps me picture it and remember it. It also makes history come alive for me.

It does require enormous amounts of time, though, doing as thorough of research lone as possible. But, it is quite worthwhile.

This is how I do things. I hope it helps.

To all Genealogists, Professional or Dabbler: Let's form a community

For anyone else working on a family tree, I hope this blog might inspire you.

I also hope we can get to know one another and share hints, tips, and resources on how to do make our family trees. We can also ask questions as well, which is probably the most helpful, and we can all share our responses and help one another. I could sure use any tip you have. And, I figure, we are all in this together. Let's inspire one another and help each other.

Please add a comment to the comment form on this blog, on the right hand side of the page, email me, and/or add a comment at the end of any blog page.

I would love for us to start a community here, where we can ask questions and offer tips and resources.

Cannot wait to hear from you.