I started doing genealogy soon after my first daughter was born.
It gave me something to do (other than changing diapers and feeding her), and I liked that it kept my mind busy during those lonely days without any adult conversation.
Looking back though, I now realize that my interest in family history started much earlier.
I think that it was sparked by a project that I had to do in elementary school. We had to make our own little family tree and it just fascinated me. I don’t think that I got beyond my great-grandparents, but I can remember thinking that I wouldn’t have been alive if it hadn’t been for these ancestors that I had never even met.
I really wish that I had continued with genealogy when I was really young. There are so many things that I would like to have asked my grandmothers. They both died before I started my research when I was 23.
I would have asked them about their weddings. I don’t have a picture of either of their weddings – and I’m not sure why.
Well, one of my grandmother’s was divorced. Maybe she didn’t keep her wedding picture.
I would have liked to have known how their lives were growing up. What stories their parents and grandparents might have told them. What living through the Great Depression and World War II were like. I really wish that I had spent more time talking with them about their lives. 🙁
