Have you ever had a time when you wondered where exactly your heritage was? Questions such as “who was the first of my ancestors to journey to America?” or “when and why did my family come over to America?” are what you may have asked. Have you ever actually tried to find anything out about your family history or genealogy? Recently I was wondering about that with my mother’s side, as I never really knew much about them, and began asking my mom and my aunt questions.

For the next few days after I got a list of siblings of my grandparents, and the names of their parents, I was looking them up on free websites such as FindaGrave.com and FamilySearch.org to find when my ancestors were born and when they died, and to build my family tree online with a free account on FamilySearch.org. I knew already what my heritage on my mom’s side was (pure German-American_, though I can’t say the same for my dad’s side… that’s a mess over there,) but not who came over when, where they came from or why. I actually found, after about four days, that my great-great-great grandfather from my grandpa’s family, came over from Tecklengurg, Germany (Prussia) in March of 1833 with his parents. They first lived in Virginia then moved out to a smaller river town of Burlington, IA where the majority of the family has stayed to this day. That was really cool information to find!

The thing about genealogy research, for me, is the traveling. With our infinite resources on the internet, your local library and the courthouse census records, so much can be discovered and written down for future generations to read and trace their family back. I don’t know why so many people haven’t done this yet. I don’t know why it took until I got into college to think “maybe I should look some of this stuff up, write it down and get it all collected before I lose the most valuable resources I have for this research: my mom, my aunt and my great-aunt, the final surviving sibling of my grandmother." Those three people are most important for my research because they actually knew the people. They have stories and memories about these people that I will never get to meet because I was born too late. But just because I was unable to meet and know them personally doesn’t mean I have to let that stop me from getting to know about them.

Genealogy research is important because it’s a personal history of your family. It’s something unique to you that no one else will ever know unless you find out about your ancestors. It’s a history that is unlikely to have ever been recorded before, and it takes you on a trip through the past. Genealogy research can take you back into the lives of people and make you wonder what it was like to live “back in the day.” If you already have someone in your family that has researched your family history, well, you’re a lucky one. Just don’t let it fall behind. Update it as it goes, make it go the whole way to current day. It’s a history that is easily lost if you do not write it down, so why not take a few days to look it up? It’s never too late to start, but the earlier you start the more resources you’ll have.