For about a year now, I have been actively researching my family history. Childhood memories and stories told by my grandparents and others from their generation have made me decide to take the plunge to dig deeper into where it all began. At first thought, I thought it would be easy to just find names along with birth and death dates. It is not as easy as it seems. Discovering the unknown is quite fascinating. What did they do for a living? Did they struggle? Ultimately the goal is to find out, “How the Dash was Lived”.
Discovering Family
Are there famous war heroes in my family? Did someone invent something? Are there any notorious criminals? Exciting stuff like that. I joined some message boards, investigated free search sites, and later created a paid account at Ancestry.
Soon after that, I started finding multitudes of ancestors. I now have over 850 people on my family tree, and I am not finished yet. Going back generation after generation, I am sure priorities were different as one generation moved onto the next. Families, work, and illnesses were a high priority. With medicine not being what it is today, many babies and young children died from something as small as a fever.
Researching my family history has been a very rewarding experience for me. I have been able to learn a lot about where I come from. I have been able to help others with their research. Also, new distant cousins through DNA testing have been discovered. My goal is to have more family DNA tested, to aid in research and discovery.
Preserving History
As far as I know, I am the only person on both sides of my family, actively researching my family history. My ultimate goal is to be able to provide the younger generations with the knowledge of their family history. Discovering the family history and making a book that can be passed down generation after generation will do just that.
Delia
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