Is family history important to you?

I've always been interested in my family history and gathered as much information as possible from my grandparents - made notes, and recorded it all in my journals I've kept over the years. My wife and I used to visit family cemeteries as well. None of our curiosity had anything to do with health. We just wanted to know as much as we could about our relatives from the past.
 

Searching the history of ones family can be very interesting and somewhat additive, 25 years ago I checked out some recent family and this led to documenting more than 2000 of our ancestors. From the fishing fleet to and from England to Newfoundland in the 1600s to the shipbuilders in Pembroke, Wales in the 1800s to agricultural workers in Dorset, England it been a fascinating journey mostly undertaken before so much was available on the internet.

Just documenting the family tree can be a rather dry undertaking of just the names of you ancestors but one in a while you can come across a real treasure of what one of them said or did that makes it all worth while. Sorry the chances of finding actual treasure is pretty slim, I am still looking!
 
MACKTEXAS said:
I've always been interested in my family history and gathered as much information as possible from my grandparents - made notes, and recorded it all in my journals I've kept over the years. My wife and I used to visit family cemeteries as well. None of our curiosity had anything to do with health. We just wanted to know as much as we could about our relatives from the past.
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Mack, did what you find confirm things you heard talked about as you grew up? I was surprised to hear what My Grandfather's family
stories contained were pure perfect clues where to look. Dead on facts over many years.
 

jujube said:
It's hard to trace ancestors, because names were sometimes changed, either because someone was fleeing the law or vengeance or because the names were changed by immigration officials.

For instance....."Name, please." "Fador Szynxtzyov." "How is that spelled?" "Spelled?" "Welcome to America, Fred Smith!" (STAMP!)

So now he has papers identifying him as Fred Smith and from then on, Fred Smith he was.
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Indeed one ancestor that I had difficulty tracing had his surname spelt 5 different ways in written parish records during his lifetime!
 
IrishEyes said:
Mack, did what you find confirm things you heard talked about as you grew up? I was surprised to hear what My Grandfather's family
stories contained were pure perfect clues where to look. Dead on facts over many years.
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Hi, I heard some very negative things growing up from my parents about grandparents & certain aunts and uncles, but when I actually got to know them* - which didn't happen until early adulthood - I felt they were much better people than the perception my parents had of them. Some in my family had a lot of old unfounded prejudices. But all the facts are hard to know . . . sometimes grandparents act differently around grandchildren than they did when raising their own children.

*Edited: aunts/uncles
 
MACKTEXAS said:
. . . sometimes grandparents act differently around grandchildren than they did when raising their own children.
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For sure! I've found that when our rose-colored glasses are removed through age and experience, we find that they were normal, fault-filled human beings when they raised their children. Sometimes we are led to believe, through family dynamics and dysfunction, that they can do no harm when they actually did much harm, as mostly all of us do in early and middle adulthood. The mellow personalities that we exhibit in later life rarely reflect our earlier attitudes and behaviors. It can be shocking and disappointing but also cathartic to see those closest to us as they really were/are.
 
When I was a youth, I couldn’t have cared less. Once I got to middle-age, I started to become curious. My aunt was an amateur genealogist so most of the work was already done for one side of the family. I was surprised to learn how involved my ancestors were in the creation of this country. Eight ancestors fought in the revolution and another was a founding father who helped write the US constitution and bill of rights. And on and on.

I am not wanting to brag, on the contrary, I am pretty much a nobody compared to most of them. My direct paternal male ancestor, whose surname I have, was apparently a penniless Irishman who escaped trouble with the British authorities by coming to the colonies. I probably identify with that ancestor more than the others.

To answer the question directly - yes, it’s important to me. It helps to know where one comes from in order to guide where one is going. If that makes sense.
 
As others have said not important but very interesting.

We moved from Wisconsin where both or my parents families had several members to California when I was three and only visited them periodically so there wasn't a lot of connection with family and very little family history shared. There weren't any cultural traditions that were passed down so there wasn't a lot of indication of where my ancestors had come from.

Evidently my paternal grandmother had kept information about her ancestry and I was eventually given that in my 30's. Her family was all from Holland and it was very easy to find ancestors back to the late 1600's because the Dutch were excellent record keepers. I can probably go back further because I do have some hints on MyHeritage.com that I could explore.

My paternal grandfather was the one I wish I'd known more about. He died of cancer before I was born. He was born in Canada but his father was from Latvia and evidently helped build out some of Canada after moving there with his parents. He died in 1965 and I could have met him if my parents had been more in touch with relatives.

Anyway I've done some digging and do it occasionally. I find it fascinating but it hasn't really solved any mysteries in my life.
 
seadoug said:
I certainly wish I'd talked with my dad about our family history. I was just clueless. I always suspected there was something deeper because I had a butchered Jewish first and last name, but my family was Baptist. I sent off for my Coat of Arms when I was a kid and it indicated our family was from Germany.

I recently began looking into Ancestry.com and saw my grandfather's original signature and how it had been altered from our last name. My grandfather was evidently a Jew in Germany during the Hitler days and immigrated to the US. Of all places, he ended up in the mountains of North Carolina where he has a plaque as one of the founders of the First Baptist Church there. There would have been such interesting stories to tell if I'd only had that time with my father.
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That's if he would've shared them with you. In the case of my dad he shared a couple navy stories but that was it. I got nothing more from him about his past or family history. Not much more out of my mother.
 
seadoug said:
I certainly wish I'd talked with my dad about our family history. I was just clueless. I always suspected there was something deeper because I had a butchered Jewish first and last name, but my family was Baptist. I sent off for my Coat of Arms when I was a kid and it indicated our family was from Germany.

I recently began looking into Ancestry.com and saw my grandfather's original signature and how it had been altered from our last name. My grandfather was evidently a Jew in Germany during the Hitler days and immigrated to the US. Of all places, he ended up in the mountains of North Carolina where he has a plaque as one of the founders of the First Baptist Church there. There would have been such interesting stories to tell if I'd only had that time with my father.
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I hope it wasn't one of those scams that was going around years ago.. companies claiming they could send people their Coat of Arms (somewhat expensive) when fact was/is not everybody has a Coat of Arms, much depends on the countries where their ancestors lived.
 
It is funny how things turn out with this at times. My Grandfather knew so much of his family history, plus we had his
uncles and aunts and even his mother living near us so stories flowed in gatherings.
My Grandmother knew very little about her family history. Her mom died when she was 3years old and was raised by
her eldest sister while her dad went from mining camp to camp in Oklahoma and Tenn. That was about all she knew about her Dad.
When I got into her family history, she had the most awesome ancestors and so much documentation on them to prove it.
Photos etc. I so wished she had lived to see my findings.
She just considered her family common every day miners and country folk and some very close to her were far from that.
When asked about her family, her answer was always:
"Not much to tell, Dad was a miner, his parents came over from Ireland and I loved him deeply."

I always wonder if she knew that history if she still would have been the little quiet mouse in the group?
I don't think she ever felt important, loved yes, but not interesting to others.
 
It used to be but now that I'm a senior, the drive to research has waned. Except for my father, I'm the oldest in a family of nieces, nephews and greats to whom I'm not close and who don't seem to care. All of the older people from whom I could have gotten verbal history are gone. When they were here, they were reticent about the past really. Too many mysteries, inconsistencies and secrets through the little that I've unearthed for me to care anymore.

I only have 1 child, a grown son who doesn't show much interest, though he has asked a few questions. I think that if I'd had several children, especially girls who now have their own children, the interest to pass down family history would be greater. Our current and ancestral family has always been small so there's not and never has been the big deal about family albums and mementos. I do have several obituaries and death certificates that I'm organizing to give to my son and sister.

I was going to pursue my ethnic origins but that doesn't even matter anymore. I never got around to doing a DNA test. Must not be as alluring anymore to others as well. Interesting that 23andMe went bankrupt. I think that some things that I didn't accomplish by the time I was middle-aged just don't matter anymore. I enjoy living my life day-to-day now, getting as much joy and peace that I can for me in the moment, and helping others whenever I can.
 
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seadoug said:
I certainly wish I'd talked with my dad about our family history. I was just clueless. I always suspected there was something deeper because I had a butchered Jewish first and last name, but my family was Baptist. I sent off for my Coat of Arms when I was a kid and it indicated our family was from Germany.

I recently began looking into Ancestry.com and saw my grandfather's original signature and how it had been altered from our last name. My grandfather was evidently a Jew in Germany during the Hitler days and immigrated to the US. Of all places, he ended up in the mountains of North Carolina where he has a plaque as one of the founders of the First Baptist Church there. There would have been such interesting stories to tell if I'd only had that time with my father.
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Seadog--you are right on when figuring out the Jewish line. In the days of the pogroms in Russia and Germany and other place, Jews were tormented, their homes burned snd they were forced to move with just what they could carry. They would settle somewhere down the line.

My family line came from these poor people and then came to USA in the mid 1800's where they settled in michigan and then moved to South Dakota. Between the immiration and SD, they changed their religion o Baptist or Methoist to aviod more strife to the new country. It is an absolute facinating history of a people and I urge you to read up on it.

Many Jews ended up in North Carolina at that time.
 
At my mother's funeral, my niece gave me a cd with an interview she had done with my parents. The strange part was my dad died in 2003, and my mom in 2015. That meant the recording was at least 14 years old when she gave it to me.
She coulkd have given it to me at my dad's funeral, why she waited so long is a mystery.
 
bowmore said:
At my mother's funeral, my niece gave me a cd with an interview she had done with my parents. The strange part was my dad died in 2003, and my mom in 2015. That meant the recording was at least 14 years old when she gave it to me.
She coulkd have given it to me at my dad's funeral, why she waited so long is a mystery.
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My middle son did one of those for me at a radio station, private interview. I was so nervous but the interviewer had a timeline
set up that he led me into for my life and history. I love that he did that for me to pass on.
 
I have used FamilySearch website to do some low effort research into my family history, and have found it interesting. I knew all 4 of my grandparents and have a picture of my paternal grandfather's grandfather. Of the 4 family lines, 3 came to America prior to the Revolutionary War and the 4th came from Germany to fight for the British at the time of the war. He was captured, then changed sides, changed his last name, and settled in Ohio after the War. I probably had folks on both sides of the Civil War, and both grandfathers served in France in WW1. All I hope to gain is to recognize them as real people, not just names. And going forward, I hope someday my own great grandson will do the same for me.
 
Then there are the huge containers of old photos, with nothing written on the back to give even the slightest clue about who’s in the picture or where it was taken. It will probably be even worse now that most photos are digital.
 
But, we can't expect future generations, or even our adult children to appreciate the memories captured in our photos. They are primarily important just to the people in the picture, since they bring only back memories to them. And sometimes (at least for me) pictures from vacations, birthdays, etc., only bring me pain. I have to be in a certain mood to sit down and open old picture albums.
 
When a photo is taken it is for the immediate people in it but furture generations do find them and wonder or know if the photo is written on. For those in the future photos are good for descerning their past, like for what I do.
 
Gardenlover said:
old photos, with nothing written on the back to give even the slightest clue about who’s in the picture or where it was taken
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I have several of these. Was so frustrated as an adult, when I asked my Mom who they were and she had no answers, that I almost burst into tears. I felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness because nothing that I found or tried gave me useful answers, if any answers at all.

MACKTEXAS said:
And sometimes (at least for me) pictures from vacations, birthdays, etc., only bring me pain.
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Yes, me too, through what few pics I have. That's why today and the future is more encouraging to many.
 
I am interested in the German side of my family. This, however, is mostly because there may be one person left besides those of us here in the US. I need the information so I can apply for my and my children's German citizenship. It is so complicated, especially because I don't have enough information to do more than my best guess regarding where my Oma and my mother were born. My actual Opa was killed in Hungary during the war. I have his full name, and even found his relatives so my mom could go to Germany and meet them. Those relatives have since died, and I have no clue where he was born.

I don't even know if Oma was married when she had my mom. I do know that my mom's maiden name was not her legal last name, though. It was the name of Oma's second husband, whom she did marry, and who was also killed in the war.

I think I will have to go to Germany and just hope to find the info the government wants. My mother had died before Germany changed their law to allow children born to German mothers (as opposed to fathers) to become citizens.
 

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