Finding My Place in History

Something that has always intrigued me is history. Although, history sometimes seems very distant and impersonal. I often can't relate to how kings and queens in Europe lived. However, I discovered that everyone has a place in history.

My favorite part of genealogy is finding the stories behind individuals. Everyone has a story, no matter how small their influence may seem. The things that we do today will impact our own personal story. Everyone is connected to history in some way or another. None of us just appeared one day as adults. We have parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. It's important to find those connections.

As a genealogist I have had the amazing opportunity to learn about other people's families as well as my own. I have done research on orphans during the Irish Potato Famine, a farming family in Civil War era Ohio, and even discovered how my own grandfather became a Southern Baptist. (Maybe I'll share that story sometime because it's a good one.) Even though most of the people that I have researched are not my direct relatives, I still feel a connection to them.

As you search for your own family, or have a genealogist do it for you, you can also feel a connection to your past. Maybe you'll find a dirty family secret or maybe you'll just discover a newspaper clipping about your great-grandparents' wedding. The feeling of discovering these records is hard to describe, but it is quite the experience.

Feel free to comment about your own experience with searching for your family!