One of the great things about genealogical research is that you usually don’t have to start from scratch. It is very likely that someone, or even multiple people in your family have explored and documented some of your family history. If you ask around, you can save yourself a lot of time and effort by taking an inventory of what others in your family already know about your family history. That’s a good thing, because genealogical research can sometimes be overwhelming, depending upon how far back you are trying to go because each new generation adds another family line to research.
In my case, I know that some of the genealogical research that I was going to do has already been done. When I was in grade school, I made a family tree as part of a class project. I’m sure that my mom has it stashed somewhere and it will be fun to ask her about it when I visit her in a few weeks. Also, last year, when my husband’s uncle was visiting us, he mentioned that he had been researching his family history and even showed us information that he had collected and posted online. I plan to get in touch with him to see what he knows about my son’s paternal grandmother’s family. I also plan to check in with other relatives because it is possible that others have done research on other lines within the family. The more existing research I can find, the better.
I am sure that after I locate the research that others have done there will still be plenty left for me to do. I’ll be creating my son’s family tree, and then I plan to double check names and dates before I publish my findings online for future generations of genealogical researchers to access. I could even look deeper into the history of some of my more interesting ancestors and write stories about their lives. This is the part of genealogy that I am most looking forward to exploring, not just names and dates but who my ancestors were and what their lives were like.