Genealogy, the study of family trees as a means of investigating our lineages and our roots, has been with us for a long time. It would probably be safe to say that much of today’s written history exists because people many centuries ago took the trouble to research and record their family history.
But why, as a person living today, would anyone want to study his or her family genealogy?
What would be the inspiration for family tree creation today?
It is the very same as generations ago. People want to know where they came from; from whom they are descended. They want to know if the way they live today is in any way determined by the way those in their family lived before them. In that way, genealogy holds great secrets.
To study genealogy, you can get started with a basic family tree, a structure showing you simply who was in your family and when, and this can be for as many generations back as you can trace. From this tree, you move on to know their stories. That’s the genealogical part. The stories are rich, and many times you will learn of people who lived before you who had inspiring stories.
Genealogy has also been embraced by science because it can be very telling to trace the history of a family. Many diseases are curable today because medical scientists have been able to study those who suffered from particular diseases and those who didn’t. The answers to some diseases have been found in making comparisons and looking at the differences in generation’s lifestyles.
Socially, genealogy has played a huge part in reuniting people who have been separated by migration. Many wars the world over have caused people to flee for their lives and become separated from their families. The tragedy of death and separation in the 2nd world war that befell the Jews was helped along in its healing by the fact that many people were reunited with family. Without family trees and genealogy, many reunions would not have happened.
Fortunately, today, because of the Internet, family tree creation has become much easier than it ever was. It is even possible to find your family tree online. There are databases today where you will find volumes of data that you can use to feed family trees. Relatives of yours, whom you may not even know, are recorded in these databases and that makes it possible for you to come up with more extensive family trees than ever before.
You will find websites online that offer you software that you can use to construct a family tree. You will get lots of tools that can all contribute to making your family tree and genealogy really rich. You will get instructions as well on how best to go about the process. The best part is that you can buy your own domain and host your tree there – all you have to do is direct your family to the site with a link and you will be able to share the information.
As you can see, all it takes is for you to find out a few names from back generations in your family and go online; from there, you will pretty much be able to construct a family tree and a genealogy that can