How do you know when you are done with your genealogy research? Is it when you complete your current project? Will you be finished when your interest wains, or when you hit a brick wall that you cannot find a way around? Many genealogists would describe themselves as addicted to their favorite hobby. Could it be that genealogy doesn’t have actually have an endpoint?
In many ways, genealogy is a “never ending story”. You may have started your family tree with little more than the names and birth dates of the relatives who you lived in the same house with you when you were growing up. Later, maybe you added your parent’s parents to the family tree. What about your parent’s siblings? I’ll bet quite a few of them were married, and had children, all of whom are people you can add to your growing family tree. One discovery of a relative leads to another, and so on, and so on, until there seems to be no end in sight.
The best analogy for what genealogy is like comes from an article I read that was written by Tammy Tipler- Priolo. She compared genealogy research to housework. When will you be done with your genealogy, forever? It’s like asking when you will be done cleaning your home, forever. You could, potentially, clean your entire home, from top to bottom, in one weekend of focused effort. This could mean that you were done, for that moment.
But, after that, laundry will begin to pile up again. Dishes will need to be washed, again. Dust will cover everything, and will need to be cleared away. It’s kind of like that. Except, most genealogists would probably say that working on genealogy is way more fun than doing housework. So, I guess the two are similar in the sense that they grow exponentially, and are never “done”.
Even if you hit the proverbial “brick wall”, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will choose to be done with genealogy. You might stop with that particular line of research for a day, or for a while, and intend to return to it later, when you are less frustrated. You might seek the help of a professional genealogist, or the advice of other genealogists that you are connected with. The study of genealogy is, in many ways, endless. I think this is part of what genealogists find so delightful about it. Who wouldn’t love to know that their favorite hobby can go on forever?
Image by Gina Lash on Flickr