6 Lessons Learned from Researching Your Family History

There are some surprising things that you can learn while researching your family history. Here are 6 lessons you might learn.

1. Life has never been easy.

When you fully begin researching the lives of people who are no longer with us, there is a tendency to believe that their lives were either much easier than ours, or much more difficult. The reality is that life has never been easy and never will be. People who are perceived to have it all often do not. Everyone has his or her own issues, not matter from which socio-economic class he or she hails.

2. Not everyone had a large farm family, but many people did.

People also tend to believe that everyone came from a large farm family as did Laura Ingalls Wilder. While there is certainly no shortage of large farm families during the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were also people who remained single, couples that had only one or two children, as well as couples who had no children at all. All of the complexity we ascribe to families of today can be found in history.

3. There was just as much scandal today as there was in what we would call simpler times.

Husbands and wives divorced, children were born out of wedlock, and people committed crimes. People, especially the elderly, like to think that we see more scandal, crime, and the like in today's society. Quite frankly, it is just much more out in the open. People no longer keep their dirty laundry behind closed doors. It can take a trained eye to spot discrepancies within the data that indicates some kind of scandal.

4. Remarriage and second families were common.

It was very common for both widows and widowers to remarry. Often, new families would be created as a result of the second marriages. In fact, it can be confusing at times to know exactly how the family was structured. It was even common for widows and widowers to marry the brother or sister of their deceased spouse. If children resulted from both marriages, it can be even more confusing.

5. The cost of war was greater only a few generations ago.

While our nation debates our involvement in the Iraq War, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the casualties and deaths that have resulted from the war, as horrific as they may be, only equals a couple of days of heavy fighting during World War II or a couple of months of fighting during the Vietnam War. The extreme sacrifices made during Vietnam, Korea, both World Wars, and the Civil War should be remembered. All of those men and women died for our freedom.

6. There are still lasting effects from the Civil War.

It is easy to think of the Civil War only in terms of Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, and black and white, stiff photographs. The reality was something quite different. Most families had a son that fought during the war, and many families had relatives fighting on both sides. Some families are still torn apart by the rift that was caused by the Civil War.

If you do decide to extensively research your family history, be prepared to learn more about your family history than you could ever imagine. It just might give you insight into your own family and life.