Recently I started tracing back my family on the Ancestry website. It has been fascinating. I was lucky enough to not be starting from scratch since one of the ancestors on my mom's side had completed a HUGE mapping starting in 1916. That mapping even includes our Irish side that he researched while in Ireland.
It is funny how we don't start truly appreciating our history until we are older. Recently my cousin came into town and we spoke over dinner about the stories we were lucky enough to hear growing up, but that we also recognized how many stories were lost when our grandparents passed away. It frustrates me to think back on how much more I would learned if I had just listened a little better and a little harder. But, there were bikes to ride and barbies to dress up. Listening to old people talk just didn't sound as fun.
How lucky we are now to be able to capture so much more information to pass along to our kids!
I hope to be able to take advantage of the ancestry site's ability to compile stories, audio recordings and pictures. They even have the ability to compile it in a book! How amazing would that be to pass down. I also found this site where you can upload all the pictures and it will create a graphic of the family tree.
I am excited to be able to start preserving this for the future. So, for anyone in the family, sign up for a free account on the link below and you can see what we have traced so far.
I know what you mean. After my grandmother passed away, I moved in with my grandfather for a few months. I hated it at the time (I was just out of high school), but in retrospect, I got to hear some great stories that I don't think he shared with most of the family.
ReplyDeleteI too took the dive into Ancestry.com a while ago. It's pretty cool!