How I Learned About My Ancestry

When I first set out to learn about my family history I did not know much about my ancestry. I knew virtually nothing about my mother's side of the family. My dad had always told me his side of the family was Scottish. Boy did I have some surprises coming.

First, I signed up for an account at www.ancestry.com, it was quick and easy. They do charge a monthly fee but the price is not too steep. The site makes it very easy to research your family tree. It helps if you at least know the names of both sets of your grandparents. The more names you already have the easier it will be. Alot of times people who have ancestors in common with you are also researching their family tree. This can be great because they have already done the work for you. This was the case with my family tree. I started with my dad's dad. I put his name into the system and he came up and then it linked to his dad and so on and so on. I was able to follow my tree all the way back to the time of Moses. Of course this was based on someone else's work and may not be totally reliable. It sure was fun though. I printed out the family tree and now I had tons of information about my ancestors. It turns out we were not Scottish like my father said but German. I found English, French, Italian and many other ethnicities in my lineage. However, there was not an ounce of Scottish blood in me. Why my dad thought this was the case I will never know but it was exciting to learn the truth.

If you are thinking of learning about your genealogy I highly recommend signing up for one of the many online genealogy sites. It will be so convenient and enjoyable to do it this way. You may hit a dead end in your family tree because no one has done the research for you. If this is the case, ancestry sites have many records you can search to find that missing relative.

Best of luck to you!