Are you my cousin?
With the fast moving extended families of today you could easily find your related to your best friend or your worse enemy.
Genealogy is the most addictive legal activity there is. Just go sit in a genealogy library and listen for the squeal of pleasure or the muffled laughter. We spend hours sifting through records on line, in a library, or the courthouse basement. It’s all the same. Bleary eyed, conscious of only one thing finding that missing information. Oh and the pleasure that beats through your veins when its found. I have often heard myself utter a sounds of pleasure at that find.
Your pleasure is not limited to such things as books and papers, where ever found but extends to the outdoors like walking thorough the new found cemetery, all of a sudden you shout “Over there, do you see it?” “Great Great grand ma’s headstone. Now how did she get buried here?” Or visiting the home or town your family grew up in.
Genealogy can help you figure out where your family came from. What country, when, did you have preachers or schoolteachers, was there a convict in the family? Where did they immigrated from. How many different branches and what family surnames are part of the family now? Some families plan their vacations around genealogy research.
Being a family genealogist, or a professional researcher takes a certain type of person. You must be diligent, inquisitive, determined and sometimes even hard headed. But you must never assume something is fact with out the document to prove it.
How do we the genealogist for the family get the next generation interested in researching the family history. Sharing is the very best way, share your trips, your walks through cemeteries, your day at the library, your pride in them and in your family. Tell stories about what you’ve found and by all mean give little books about family members to the families. Not everyone will have the drive and determination but your love of what you do will develop the drive in some of your descendants.
Now to me that’s genealogy.
So…Are you my cousin?
