Family History

[Crissy]

I know we all have our different reasons why we feel importance of family history. I am just curious....Why is it personally important to you? Is it your personal connection that makes you want to know more about your ancestors? I don't question the importance of it. I am envious of those who have had ancestors who have kept journals because I see very little from my family. I would just like to know how others feel why it is important to them.

[carollee]

You mean the reason we want to scrap it? Well for me, my dad died two years ago and with him any of the stories he may not have shared with us over the years has now died with him. We'll never know them. And with him gone, the people that come in our lives from here on in, like my brother who has re-married and now has step-children, will never know him, only through pictures. I want them to know their step-grand daddy, so it was important for me to do our family history and I did a huge shutterfly book.

I want my husband's children, and their children, and their children to know him long after he's gone, which is why I'm now doing my husbands history book of his early years. I hope it will be handed down throughout the generations.

That's why I think scrapping family history is really important. To make sure our stamp on the world is well and truly stamped.

[DonnaNJ]

That's a very interesting question. Outside of the fact that I just find history interesting and it fascinates me to hear stories of lives very different then ours. I think it's also a way to share the love you felt for someone, with people who didn't get to share it. For example, while my daughter knew my in laws and my Mom, they were all gone by the time my son was born. My Mom, in particular, was a character and Oh how she would have loved my son. So it's my way of sharing that with him. I also think it's important for them to understand what the people before them did to give them the life they know.

[champsarahjoy]

I just don't want all of that valuable information to be lost.
Recently I have been going over to my grandparents' homes and just asking them questions, trying to get as many stories and tidbits as I can. I also plan to scan the photos they have and match them up with the information. i have been overwhelmed by what I have learned so far...it has really helped me understand who they are and to be more compassionate with their flaws and passions. I love them even more! I have been most amazed at all of the tragedy they and their families have endured. A reminder that no one has a perfect life.
I have been very humbled and reminded to write MY stories down so they are not forgotten either.

[dorah]

My mom wanted me to explore her family history after receiving a paper with a brief family tree from a distant relative. And it really became important to me following my dh's death as he was the last living person in his family. His parents were long gone and his sister had died several years before him. I want my ds to have a record somewhere of all of this. The history came first and then the scrapping and now I am working to combine the two into cohesive books.

[deanie]

I first became interested in genealogy when I lived in a community with many historic houses. Our group gave an award to several houses a year and it was my responsibility to research the houses and find out about the people who had lived there. Personally the fact that the last six generations of guys in the family all were named John Lauer, made it fun to research about them. Now, I'd like to do my side of the family.

[twirlerzmom]

I have yet to start any of my heritage pages but I find it fascinating and hope to get to it soon. I want my kids and grandchildren to know the stories behind our family. I recently found an old photo album containing tons of pictures from WWI. It belonged to my great-uncle. Unfortunately there wasn't any journaling with the photos so I have no idea what the photos represent. It's a great piece of history however. I don't want my kids to have to guess as to what's behind the photos I'm taking now. Hopefully in years ahead they can open my scrapbooks and have the stories just unfold for them because I took the time to record the memories for them. That's the goal anyway

[Crissy]

I am really enjoying these answers. Thanks so much for sharing. I too, hope that I can keep documentation up on my scrapbook pages so my future generations can know our family and what we were like.

[whatnext]

i just find history in general fascinating, and when a history belongs to me, i find it irresistible. i've spent untold hours tracking down what ancestors i could in both my family and my husband's. there's less available for my side of the family, so, when i heard that the National Geographic Society and IBM were doing a genome project, i collected up all the cousins i could to do the cheek swab thing so that we could see our family's journey from out of Africa to wherever they got to several thousand years ago. that has been the single most amazing genealogy thing i've done. i found out that my mom's female line comes from the Finnish reindeer herders and her father's is in the same genetic group that crossed the Bering Strait and became the native populations of the Americas. I've also got Mongolian horselords in my blood and a connection to the Founders Event of European Jewry. I AM the world!

This is better than ANY movie. it's a detective story in which I am the main character!

[Crissy]

Oh WOW, Phylis!! That is pretty cool!! Thank you for sharing that!

[maureenreynolds]

I too wish I had more Crissy. Both my parents were dead by the time I was 35 (ALS and Cancer) and I'm an only child. There is no one left on my mother's side to tell me anything about this side of the family. I only have a few memories of conversations with my maternal Aunt about my parents. There was some rivalry between the sisters and so it's hard to separate fact from feelings there.

I look at other pages and wonder...what would I put in other than questions?

[AmyJ]

Well. . . that's kinda tricky for me.

My mom's done our my genealogy for years and years and years. She had some of our family past the the American Revolution and further. (And yes genealogists, she's got other lines she can't hardly find) That said, she's got a closet full of family documents. Unbelievably difficult to go through.

I decided that the hobby- the sluething and the mystery and the history- all interested me but I know that to follow her research wouldn't be easy. Very little is known of DH's family so I took that on.

These days sometimes I wane on why it interests me- we have no kids, his only sibling has no kids- and barring some strange circumstance neither of us couples ever will. But, then he does have cousins with kids on either side of his family. Mainly, I do it because it's interesting.

Why scrapbook it? Well for me, I'd rather have it presented neatly and nicely than in all the binders that my mom has. I'd like to be able to have something younger generations would actually be interested in seeing.

My mom and I have thought many times of combining our talents- her research my scrapbooking- and her writing her research on a person or family in a narrative and sending me pics, me creating the layouts. Hopefully some time soon, I'll find the time for a project like that.

[digigrandma]

Glad you asked this question, Crissy! I find your question interesting to think about and the responses in this thread are fascinating. Thanks, everyone!

Why my interest? It's a question I should think about because I do spend a lot of time working with the old photos to get them organized and scrapped on pages that will, I hope, help my family know the ancestors that I knew, but, they never met. I've always been interested in the family stories my mother and father told me, but, it wasn't until I raised my own family and retired from teaching that I started spending this much time on it.

I certainly hope someone will be interested in what I've done, down the line, but, I figure, even if no one is interested, I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of sorting through photos, organizing them, scanning them and choosing which ones to scrap. For one thing, I have an endless supply of photos....I flit from one era to another all the time....whatever fits my mood. Right now, I must have 5 or 6 albums in the making at Shutterfly related to heritage topics.

Phylis, I would love to know all that you know about your ancestry. Wow, fascinating information! I can trace all my ancestors back to Sweden and Norway, but, I have often wondered, waaaaay back when, how did my people get there, you know? For example, the people in Scandinavian countries are usually thought of as blond haired and blue eyed, but, my relatives in Sweden were dark haired with brown eyes. So, when and where did they come from originally to settle in that region?

Jan, your World War I photos....I bet there are many who would find those photos of interest for the history of a time gone by when there weren't as many photographs as there are of WWII, for example.

Maureen, sorry you lost both of your parents when you were so young. I'm sure you do have many questions you would ask them if they were alive today. I hope you do some kind of reminiscing about what you do know and those questions. If not a whole book, then maybe a few pages for your AAM book.

[Crissy]

Your stories have already inspired me! I sent my mom an e-mail earlier today to ask about my Grandmother that passed away when I was only 6. I vaguely remember her. I just received my moms response. I am tears right now. Just the little information about her has already touched me and given me a feeling of connection because of the similarities I have just discovered with her. I need to ask more about my other family members that have passed on and record this information.

[readstoomuch]

Crissy . . . this is such an interesting thread! I am enjoying all of the responses so much. I have been blessed to have quiet a lot of old photographs form my mother's side of the family, but very few from my daddy's side.

Two of my aunt's were very involved in the genealogy of our family and one of my cousin's has carried it even further. I do appreciate the charts and other things that they have researched but, I love the stories connected to the photographs and people even much more. I spend lots of time writing the "stories" of my life and those of my children an grandchildren so those won't be lost. I still have my Aunt Velma who can share many things still, so I am working on those with her. I have a hard time writing the things that she tells me quickly enough and I'm afraid that some of what she says gets lost in my brain!! I've tried a recorder, but she doesn't talk as freely with it running.

I'm so glad that you mom can tell you things, Crissy . . . you will enjoy knowing about your Grandmother so much. Six years old is so young to lose such a special person. Thanks so much for starting this thread!!!

[ptabbert]

Wonderful topic! I love history and love the search for my ancestors. I've researched my family tree, my dh's family tree as well as doing research for two of my brothers-in-law and helping several individuals with certain searches. I find genealogical research fascinating. I'm trying to incorporate scrapbooking into the "books" I'm creating for different lines.

[minimom87]

I think it's important to honor people in our past who have made impressions on us and to recognize those we share common traits with. In the case of my husband's family - the resemblance between my son, his father and his grandfather is so remarkable it's just fun to celebrate that. In the case of my family - I was also strongly influenced by my great aunts and uncles (my grandparent's siblings) because my mom and dad were only kids and these people were so woven into my fondest childhood memories at holidays, picnics on the farm and other events. It's also sometimes just really cool when you realize how many informational assets there are to discover one's family background on the internet. If you like history -- you'll like family history.

[Netleigh]

Fascinating thread.
My reason for researching my family history is I learned the tales of the heritage photos because I loved looking at the albums when I was a little girl. Both my parents died relatively young in their 60's and I inherited the photos, I am the last person that knows the stories and I need to write them down for future generations. However I became curious about the tales such as 'that is your great grandfather and his brother they came over to Edinburgh from Orkney'. I wanted to know more and have sporadically, as a busy life allows, done research and found ancestors going back to 1718 in Orkney. There are lots of things I now need to follow up on, it becomes fascinating to understand what social conditions, work and family life these people had. Even in the lifetime of my great-aunt, she went from having gas light to electricity, from living in a family of 9 plus a lodger, who was a female relation working in town, in a two room 'house', actually a tenement flat in Edinburgh, to having her own 3 bedroom house. A 2 room tenement is actually not quite as bad as it sounds because they had bed closets, a double bed in a cupboard. So the kitchen/living room would have had two bed closets, one for the parents and one for the girls and the other room would have been used as a bedroom too with more double beds shared by her 6 brothers.

[Netleigh]

Originally Posted by digigrandma

the people in Scandinavian countries are usually thought of as blond haired and blue eyed, but, my relatives in Sweden were dark haired with brown eyes. So, when and where did they come from originally to settle in that region?

Merrilee,
There are quite a lot of nothern Norwegians(not the Saami (Lapp) population) with black hair, not blonde, not so sure about the brown eyes. There is even a town where the 'festival queen' must be dark haired.
My Mum had that colouring, black hair - not dark brown and china blue eyes and we've noted it came from the Orkney side of the family so probably from the Vikings!

[digigrandma]

Thanks, Janette, that is interesting!

I keep coming back to check this thread because I love reading about everyone's interest in and searches for information about the past.

[anke]

I just want to document my family for my kids. WE have nobody around here, DH's only brother lives a few hours away and both our parents are gone. Cousins are spread out all over the world... they often ask me why we don't have any family around here, so I want to at least give them a sense of our history!
Great stories everybody, this is so interesting!

[annaaspnes]

I'm just curious to see where I came from and how people used to live.

[conorsmum]

So many reasons for me: I'm just down right sentimental! We also live thousands of miles away from most of our family so I want to make sure that my children understand where they came from and who their ancestors are. I have British, Irish and German blood but grew up in Africa. I love researching our family history.

I also work in Palliative Care and see every day how finite life is. I want to document as much as I can.

[Crissy]

Love all your stories, everyone! They are so interesting and all very unique. I enjoy reading these

[kaleidoscope]

Maybe this quote sums it up for me:
Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. ~The Wonder Years

Originally Posted by Crissy

I am envious of those who have had ancestors who have kept journals because I see very little from my family.

Me, too. Not only do we not have journals or even old photos - my father was adopted. My mother never knew her father. And even beyond that, I never really knew what grandparents I had on a very personal level. I don't have a heritage. KWIM? I know that I'm part French Canadian (my maternal grandmother was from Quebec) but that's it. I don't know if I'm also Irish, German, Greek, or whatever. I'd love to have one of those DNA tests that tell you what you are.