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What Is Genealogy?
Genealogy is the art of tracing pedigrees and ancestral families. Family history is the process of discovering and coming to understand the lives of our ancestors by putting them into historical perspective. Together, genealogy and family history involve looking for and finding the threads of our ancestors' lives that make up the tapestry of history.
Your ancestors as well as mine lived history. In one way or another, they all made history. No lives are so quiet, so small, and so insignificant that they leave no mark in the fabric of time.
But why do people spend so much work, time, energy, and money in chasing their dead ancestors? What motivates them to dig out this type of information? One of the most common reason is human curiosity. Many people begin tracing their family trees because they want to know who their ancestors are and what they did. Moreover, they want to know if their family traditions are true or not.
Is our family related to President Abraham Lincoln? Do we descend from a signer of the Declaration of Independence? Are we related to Spanish nobility? Did Great-grandma really jump ship and immigrate illegally, or are there records that tell how she came to America and where she came from? Are we really a mixture of Irish, Scott, and German ancestry? For many people, family history turns out to be even more fascinating and entertaining than a bestseller fiction or reality-based television shows.
One of the first lessons that historians and genealogists learn is not to judge the past too quickly. Instead, they seek to understand the conditions under which their ancestors loved and lived. There may be unknown factors (cultural, economic, historical, religious, or social) that make your ancestor's actions logical. Therefore, a crucial rule of genealogy is to keep an open mind.
Another important rule of genealogy is to always seek proof from more than one source. Are you one of those people who inherited a pile of unidentified family photos? Do you wonder how all those people are related to you, especially the ones who resemble your living family members?
Stories are passed down all too readily in our families. With passing time and frequent repetition, they take on a different version of truth and meaning. But genealogists seek truth via proof. Genealogy readily attracts people who like mysteries, word games, and puzzles in general.
Putting your family tree together is like assembling the pieces of a real-life jig saw puzzle. Fortunately, you don't have to be a first-rate detective like Sherlock Holmes to be a successful genealogist. Patience, persistence, thoroughness, and interest all count for a great deal more than occasional strokes of genius.
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