Understanding your family history has may benefits. There are generations of people before you that all had interesting lives and it’s a fun project to track that. Not only do you end up with more pride over where you came from but you also end up with extensive knowledge about who you are. The genes within us make up for a large proportion of our personality and being able to understand why we are who we are is invaluable. Let’s take a deeper look into why we should track our family history with these 6 points.
Learning About Your Genes
Researching your genes is incredibly important for someone that wants to learn about themselves, what makes them who they are, what makes certain personality traits, and why they react in certain ways. There is so much we can learn by delving into the previous world of where our genes came from. If this is something you think would be beneficial to you then there are genealogists that are there to help, you can find out some more information by visiting this URL and discovering what a professional genealogist can do for you. Having someone do the difficult investigation for you will allow more detailed information to arise, doing this research on your own or using a website will sometime hinder your results and could only provide the basic information.
For Medical Reasons
Probably one of the more shocking reasons for looking into your family heritage is to discover your precious family’s health, this can help give you an idea of things you should look out for within yourself. There are many diseases that are hereditary and need to be caught before they can progress into anything serious. This is why there are huge benefits to researching your family medical history as you will know if you should go and get tested for certain illnesses like high cholesterol, heart disease, or even cancer. It might seem like a morbid subject to get getting into but if you can catch early signs of something progressing the quicker you can treat it the better.
Family Traditions
There are thousands of families with quirky traditions and many have absolutely no idea as to why they do them, have you ever asked yourself where and why your family tradition started? If that’s the case then looking back through family records could give you the answer you’ve been looking for. There are so many ways you can research the past and there will be plenty of people to speak to about recent history but there won’t be anyone from the 1800s around. If you’ve managed to get your search back centuries then speaking to a local historian might give you an idea or some explanation into what you’ve found.
Validation
Some of us will have other family members that have started the family tree and lost interest when the digging got a little tough, in this situation many will want validation of their family. Who were the parents of your great grandad? Do I have a long lost cousin that lives in another country? Where does the family originally come from? All these questions will be answered if you take the time to finish off what another family member started.
Understand History
There might be a few historical events that you want to look at and discover more about. You may even want to see if your ancestors were a part of history, there are many people that discover that their great-great-grandfather was part of the army during World War 1, or their great-uncle was a part of medical history. We might not know any of this until we take a look into the archives. Another reason to look back and understand history is to see if we were ever related to Royalty, finding out that you descend from a royal family will make you feel pretty cool.
For Fun
Lastly, for fun! Looking into your family’s archives and discovering what each and every one of them did for a job and how they spent their time is great fun. Not only will you find it interesting but you’ll discover some amazing things on the way and you may even discover that your job has been running in the family for hundreds of years.
When it comes to tracking your family history I would start small, it’s a long process but a very rewarding one if you can get some answers. Get searching on local websites and some archive websites and then get in contact with a genealogist to see if they can help you in any way, having someone in your corner is invaluable when searching through time. If you’re starting a family tree project then good luck, and if you’re debating whether to then what are you waiting for?
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
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