Are most people not interested in family trees?

[iluleah]

I cannot speak to anybody else's experiences, but in my experience those who do not wish to know about their family history display all the signs of FEAR. Sometimes, quite irrational.

Chas

I would agree with you!

Other peoples family trees I am not interested in... I am interested in proving and researching mine and if during research I prove some extended relation then of course 50% of their tree is relevant and so their research and tree is interesting.

When I began to research NO ONE in my family would help, NO ONE would check their records or allow me to and they took a vow of silence about 'family', so apart from "let sleeping dogs lie" and "I don't know" comments they were no help whatsoever...so fear of what I would find and also thinking I would find nothing if they stayed silent made me very curious and I learned how to research and keep quiet.
Then one day( 20 yrs later) my mother asked me if I still did family history or had a "grown out of that faze"? Yes I still did it! .....and silence this time from me, so she assumed I didn't know/hadn't found what she thought needed to be hidden....she was wrong. Then a couple of years later she asked if I would speak to my cousin who wanted to know how to research ( as she really thought secrets of the past would remain so)
Sure I would help him and by this time the internet was available and the hundreds of trees and he was a copy and paste collector of those, so had no knowledge of research and proving and was horrified he had to start over and prove from real records especially as he found that his 'tree' was spurious only 4 generations in and his hundred of ancestors after that were not his ancestors at all.

My mother is still in the dark about what I have and I intend to keep it that way.

What I did do is find a 2nd cousin once removed on the other side of the world who sent me a copy of a photo which was in their family of my great grandparents and their children(their great grandparent/my grandfather plus our great aunts/uncles) which of course i had never seen and I had a copy made for my mother as they were her grandparents and she was thrilled but it did make her realise i knew a lot more than I was letting on.

[clairec666]

I can understand why other people aren't interested in genealogy. I sometimes wonder, "why am I doing this? I am my own person, and I'm not defined by who my parents are, so why should I be interested in who my great-great-great grandparents are?"

And then I check to see if any new records are available

[iluleah]

I can understand why other people aren't interested in genealogy. I sometimes wonder, "why am I doing this? I am my own person, and I'm not defined by who my parents are, so why should I be interested in who my great-great-great grandparents are?"

And then I check to see if any new records are available

 

I know why I do it, only child of an only child who died when I was young I always felt I had no family, so research proved I did.........and I am plain and simply nosy

[BumbleB]

I can understand why other people aren't interested in genealogy. I sometimes wonder, "why am I doing this? I am my own person, and I'm not defined by who my parents are, so why should I be interested in who my great-great-great grandparents are?"

And then I check to see if any new records are available

 

I know why I do it, only child of an only child who died when I was young I always felt I had no family, so research proved I did.........and I am plain and simply nosy

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss  Only child of only child parents married to an only child and I only have one child!!

[River Tyne Lass]

Hi Intevel,

How are you doing?   I thought I would jump in here to give my view and advice as I genuinely think you are puzzled by people's responses to some of your posts.

I think genealogy is a wonderful hobby and has lots of benefits.  It is big business and countless people all over the world are interested in this. 

However, we are all different and have different interests and very different ways of enjoying things.  For anyone who is interested in genealogy I think the important thing to enjoy this hobby in the way that suits you and gives you the most enjoyment and not to question or criticize the way others choose to do things.

For example, my local library runs a knitting club (true).  I am going to give you an imaginary scenario.  Imagine three different types of knitters who all sit at the same table in this group.  One likes to knit simple things such as easy scarves or squares for dog blankets; the second can knit jumpers; the third person comes along to the group and knits all kinds of difficult and intricate items which take a long time to complete.

The first person could say to the third one "Why do you spend so much time working on something so complicated - you could be finished your project quickly and not have to concentrate so hard if you did something easy like me?"  The second and third people could say to the first person "Why don't you challenge yourself more?  You don't seem to be progressing much?  Is it worth you coming here?" 

However, the important thing is that they each enjoy things in their own way so why should either of them worry about or criticize another's way of doing things?

I mean this to be helpful and I would advise to let go of worrying about the way people choose to follow this hobby and enjoy the experience to the max in your own way.  This is a great forum and you can have a great time on here.  It is okay to question but always try to be respectful.  Avoid name calling or saying anything which might come across as putting someone down.   If you say something in a nice way such as using phrases such as 'I am a bit confused about what you might mean?' or 'I feel a bit hurt by that' others may try to respond more helpfully.  I think lately on here things have become a bit inflammatory. And remember it is okay for people to agree to disagree. 

For example, a few weeks ago I put a post on here about bullet journaling.  I had come across lots of lovely designs on the internet and thought this a great organizational tool.  I asked what people thought about this.  The majority of people who responded did not see the point of this and did not appear to be interested in starting a bullet journal any time soon.  Am I upset about this?  No!!  Of course not!  I have now started my bullet journal hobby and I am enjoying this in my own quiet way using colours and designs to my hearts content.

It is not too late to turn things around.  Have fun and enjoy this hobby and try not to get upset or concerned about the way others choose to do things or about the level of interest that may be right for them. 

Best Wishes

PS Also, some people may have no interest at all in genealogy !!!  Believe it or not!  But that is okay too  

[Mart 'n' Al]

River Tyne Lass, that was a good comment. I really despair at how people try to channel other people's use of the internet to conform to their own standards. We have 200 countries in this world,  a thousand religions and you're never going to get everybody to agree with everybody else at the same time.  The original poster stated his views with which we can choose to agree or disagree. In my local pub I can choose to talk to who I want,  however I want,  and they can choose to listen or ignore me.  I often cite the example of if you were on an island but you thought you were the only person and then one day you found the 99 identical people all conforming to a certain standard comma and one person who is different. Which one would you choose to be your friend?

In our genealogy, as well as searching for the truth, we're also looking for the characters.

Martin

[River Tyne Lass]

Hi Iluleah,

Your post made me smile .. the part where you wrote that you were asked if you had .. 'grown out of that faze'.  We will always sometimes come across family members or friends who we might suspect us of being a bit mad or eccentric for pursuing this hobby. 

This can happen with any hobby however.  I had a friend once who developed an interest in playing the bongo drums.  She and her husband started going along to a local group every week to play these drums and they loved it.  However, another friend of ours was completely non-plussed.  Why, he asked did they want to take part in something like this?  What was the point?  Where was this going to get them in life?  etc, etc.  I was there when she smiled sweetly and explained that she got enjoyment out of this for its own sake and it did not matter if this did not get them anywhere in particular in life.  She then asked why he went to the pub every week.  What was the point?  Where was this going to get him in life?  I just enjoy it, he replied.  Exactly, she responded.  I think he got the point.  Each to their own.

[River Tyne Lass]

Thank you, Martin.  I totally agree with what you have written.   I believe in free speech as long as this is done respectfully and used in a way to build up rather than to hurt or be derogatory to others. 

[coombs]

I have no interest in sport and I find sport cluttering up the TV channels can be annoying. But I find a way round that in the fact I often use the remote to find other things on TV such as repeats of comedies, Judge Judy, documentaries, WDYTYA, soaps etc. And some people will have no interest in genealogy.