Introduction to Genealogy
Genealogy defined as 'an account of the descent of a person or family through an ancestral line', or 'to research pedigrees as a department of knowledge', is a high-faulting description of what, to the rest of us, as 'tracing the family tree'.
Nostalgia, in recent years, has found a wealth of collectible interests emerging among a public ever eager to get hands-on anything connected with the past: old postcards, postage stamps, paper ephemera, 195Os and '60s memorabilia and family trees! It seems that today we are not content to know just how our ancestors lived. Specific ancestors, namely those whose genes, characteristics and hereditary behaviour are the sum result of our being. We want to know exactly who those people were: where they lived; what they did for a living; whether that story of highway robbers, criminals and corrupt relatives is factual, or a figment of Grandma's overactive imagination.
Today so many people are eager to trace their own family histories that once desolate Public Record Offices are now able to manage a system, for which those who now fill its halls to carry out their own research, must make an appointment to do so. These treasure chests of registers, records, census documents and various other documented pieces of evidence on the lives of those before us, are now little hives of activity, filled with enthusiastic researchers from the moment their doors open.
Nevertheless, a day is never enough; a day can sometimes result in mountains of useful information to provide much of one's family history; it might instead yield nothing.
Perhaps the best thing about researching your family tree, is the wonderful way it can bring the past to life as you not only read of whom your ancestors were, but can also see the same things they saw during their lives. Churches they attended; street scenes and activities they might have taken for granted; special events strikes and invaluable insights into yesterday's working environment shops with staff posing outside, and much, more.
Your family’s history is part of your history too. Perhaps learning more about your family will inspire you to be a different person today. Alternatively, perhaps your search will help open the door to questions that you may have. For others, a search into their family ancestry is one that will provide them with the tools to pass down information to their own children and then their grandchildren as well. Genealogy is something to strive for.
The search to learn more about your family is something that people have wanted to know and learn for hundreds of years. The need to know about whom, what, where, and when is powerful and any person can want more information about their past, whether it is their own or their ancestors.
Our search to learning your genealogy is a long one and it will take some work. There is nothing simple or easy about unearthing years of history. The reward that will come from it is a reward that will fulfil your history craving for knowledge. Use this website to help you to begin your search.
