The Frustrations of Finding Your Ancestors

Doing research on your family tree can be both an adventure of discovery as well as the frustration of hitting a brick wall. If you have at least several known generations already known to you then the adventure side of the search is ahead of you. If you know nothing about your Grandparents then be prepared for a series of brick walls ahead.

My own search for the family tree began when I was in 7th grade and in one class I was given the assignment of bringing in the family tree. At first I was so happy to do the assignment. I wrote to all my living relatives. A few weeks later my hopes of documenting the family tree was dashed when my only living Grandmother on my father's side, simply wrote back that there was no one famous in the family and did not even bother to give names and dates of any relative. My mother on the other hand was able to document at least back to her Great Grandparents, with full names and dates of birth, death and marriages. When it came time to present my assignment in class I was the most embarrassed child in the room. All of the other children were able to track back their family trees to at least their Great, Great Grandparents. My father's family was missing and I felt so left out.

So began my quest to find out more about my father's family. It has taken decades to find out more about my father's dad. I have found out the name of his parents but so far that is it. It is the part of the family tree that I keep hitting a brick wall. I just can't seem to get past the 1890's with that part of the family.

The internet has helped immensely in my search but it has been by no means an easy task. My father's family lived in England and not many records for England have found their way to the internet yet. I have found out that many people in England make a living doing family tree research so I think that is why they are reluctant at having public records on the internet. Other parts of the family tree have been easy to find and I have found out many interesting branches.

There are many websites that have helped me in my search. I tend to stay away from the paid membership websites since they are not as accurate as they claim to be. Most of the family trees found on those sites tend to be people's best guesses from questionable sources.

My favorite websites for family tree research are Cyndi's List and Family Search which are free research sites.