RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: 11easkry on Friday 10 June 16 21:38 BST (UK)
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Just wondering if there are any other people like me who are young genealogists/family tree researchers. I'm 16 and have been doing it for around 9 months now and I absolutely love it! Not only is it fascinating to research trees and find information that makes your family look boring, but it also broadens my mind, and gives me good challenges when I hit brick walls in my research.
The strangest part about it all is that I've researched about 40 family trees over the last 9 months, but never my own. I've always wanted to research my own family, however they are all born in Guyana. My dad's side of the family are hard to trace as my grandfather has many children with many different women, (so I have aunts and uncles that I have probably never heard of), as well as there being virtually no BMD, census records, or electoral rolls for Guyana, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, and the USA.
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I was mad into genealogy when I was 15 - I had family trees of all the Royal families of Europe . . England from William the Conquerer, France from Hugh Capet etc.
I'm sure they're lurking somewhere in the house still, 50-odd years later.
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Glad to hear you are enjoying it - it is something that fascinates me as well - though I did not get into it until my 30's when the 1901 census was put online. It is a shame that you cannot easily research your own tree, but to me that sounds like the perfect excuse to go travelling!!! If it was me I would consider waiting until I had finished school then, before going to Uni (or work!), I would take a year off and go visit those countries to see what I could find (and enjoy the sights as well!!). In fact, you could even look to making a career out of it - I am sure there are people out there who want to know about their past but cannot be bothered to do it themselves, so would pay someone to research it themselves - so no different to what you are doing now I guess for your friends! Best of luck whatever you do
Kev
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Even if you can't actually find and look at records now, make sure that you ask as many relatives as possible what they remember about parents and grandparents. Perhaps even make a questionnaire and give it to them to jog their memories. Keep the replies somewhere safe, as you never know, in a few years those missing records may be available online, and you don't want to be thinking, as a lot of us do, "I wish I'd asked them when they were alive."
Good luck.
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Lovely to hear that you have such a great interest.
Don't forget to take plenty of photos while you can for future generations.
Enjoy
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I too started at 15, after watching the TV series Roots. I started asking my mother about our family, and rang my paternal aunt to ask about that side (my father had already passed away). Lots of handwritten notes, and visits to libraries and archives (no internet back then). My interest waned for a few years, but I kept those notes. Luckily, because when I took it up again, those family members were mostly gone then.
Have you tried the LDS? Their family history centres are very helpful, and they may have access to the records you are seeking.
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I started when I was 16 and remember getting some really odd looks when I went to the Family Records Centre in London. I also remember every time I went to the record office they automatically assumed I wanted a computer, not a microfilm reader!!
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I got started when I was 17 (19 now). I definitely second the point about talking to Grandparent's, my Grandfather died just after I got interested and so any information that he may have had has been lost now. Names, dates and places are relatively easy to discover in records compared to the personal stories which make a family tree far more interesting.
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Young genealogists are definitely around. You just need to find them in the right place.
Why don't you try this blog out:
http://youngandsavvygenealogists.blogspot.com.au/p/who-are-young-and-savvy-genealogists.html
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Or maybe check out this mob - The NextGen Genealogy Network:
https://www.facebook.com/NextGenNetwrk/timeline
http://www.tnggn.org
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Even if you can't actually find and look at records now, make sure that you ask as many relatives as possible what they remember about parents and grandparents. Perhaps even make a questionnaire and give it to them to jog their memories. Keep the replies somewhere safe, as you never know, in a few years those missing records may be available online, and you don't want to be thinking, as a lot of us do, "I wish I'd asked them when they were alive."
Good luck.
Yes, I need to write a letter to my 94 year old Grandmother in Guyana, as I have been told that she "knows all of the answers" with regards to my fathers side of the tree. Thanks! :)
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Glad to hear you are enjoying it - it is something that fascinates me as well - though I did not get into it until my 30's when the 1901 census was put online. It is a shame that you cannot easily research your own tree, but to me that sounds like the perfect excuse to go travelling!!! If it was me I would consider waiting until I had finished school then, before going to Uni (or work!), I would take a year off and go visit those countries to see what I could find (and enjoy the sights as well!!). In fact, you could even look to making a career out of it - I am sure there are people out there who want to know about their past but cannot be bothered to do it themselves, so would pay someone to research it themselves - so no different to what you are doing now I guess for your friends! Best of luck whatever you do
Kev
I've officially finished school, and only have to go in for two exams next week, then I have a 10 week school break, so I will definitely do some more research into my own tree. I have thought about it genealogy as a career, but because I took it up during GCSE's it's something that's messed up quite a few things - go into Computing, and keep genealogy on the side, or take it up as a profession after uni? I still have a few decisions to make.
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I started when I was 16 and remember getting some really odd looks when I went to the Family Records Centre in London. I also remember every time I went to the record office they automatically assumed I wanted a computer, not a microfilm reader!!
I've been meaning to got the Family History Centre in Ashton/Manchester for a while now, to research some records that I can't access at home. But now that I've finished school I'll have to go - at least I know what to expect :-\
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I too started at 15, after watching the TV series Roots. I started asking my mother about our family, and rang my paternal aunt to ask about that side (my father had already passed away). Lots of handwritten notes, and visits to libraries and archives (no internet back then). My interest waned for a few years, but I kept those notes. Luckily, because when I took it up again, those family members were mostly gone then.
Have you tried the LDS? Their family history centres are very helpful, and they may have access to the records you are seeking.
Yes, I use familysearch all the time! I absolutely love it, and to say you get so many records for free compared to other sites! However recently some of the records, particularly foreign ones, are now only accessible from their Family History Centres, so now that I've finished school, I am going to go to my local one in the coming weeks.
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Career wise if I could go back and to I all again, I'd love to be an archivist! With computing there are always jobs with companies like Ancestry and Find My Past being advertised, and I imagine ones with genealogy software companies, might be a good way to combine the two interests!
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Hi.
I wish I had taken it up around your age. I'd have been able to ask more people about their lives. However I only started when I had my own children. My eldest is now 16 (exam madness in our house too) he has been interested for about 5 years and has been working on the local War memorials around the local villages to document the lives of those mentioned. One of these resulted in representing his school on a visit to the battle fields in Flanders.
My youngest came to a family history fair three years ago when he was 9 as I was looking at the books for sale I could hear him chatting to the stall holder. I made my purchase and turned to see him holding a carrier bag. He said look what I've got! I opened the bag and inside were family history book's. The stall holder had been so impressed with him talking about what he knew of his family and how he knew of their lives he had given Adam around £30 of books to help him go further. I offered to pay but the man insisted. I was a very proud mum.
Keep at it the answers are out there..... ask lots.....take photos.
Good luck with the exams.
Tazzie
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If you thinking of a career, thing about probate genealogy.
There are many companies who don't appear on Heir Hunters.
You may want to get your A levels done and think about it then. A lot will happen to you in the next 2 years.
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My advice to you ( sorry, ex teacher so can't help it! ) would be to get a degree in Computing as that will leave your options open. Once you have that, you could then explore taking your genealogy interest further. Why not contact one of the heir hunting firms such as Fraser and Fraser, Neil is a member of RootsChat, and ask what qualifications they ask for? My worry is that at the moment there are a lot of people starting family finding businesses, so competition may be steep if you just concentrate on that.
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Aside from future careers, accept any photos family members offer you, even if you don't know who they are. I was offered boxes of old photos when I was much younger, but only took the ones I could identify, much to my regret today.
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My advice to you ( sorry, ex teacher so can't help it! ) would be to get a degree in Computing as that will leave your options open. Once you have that, you could then explore taking your genealogy interest further. Why not contact one of the heir hunting firms such as Fraser and Fraser, Neil is a member of RootsChat, and ask what qualifications they ask for? My worry is that at the moment there are a lot of people starting family finding businesses, so competition may be steep if you just concentrate on that.
Yes, competition is always stiff when you're just in the family finding business. Thanks for the advice! :)
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Or maybe check out this mob - The NextGen Genealogy Network:
https://www.facebook.com/NextGenNetwrk/timeline
http://www.tnggn.org
Just looked at their page, it's great to see many more people who share the same passion as me, thankyou! :)
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Hi.
I wish I had taken it up around your age. I'd have been able to ask more people about their lives. However I only started when I had my own children. My eldest is now 16 (exam madness in our house too) he has been interested for about 5 years and has been working on the local War memorials around the local villages to document the lives of those mentioned. One of these resulted in representing his school on a visit to the battle fields in Flanders.
My youngest came to a family history fair three years ago when he was 9 as I was looking at the books for sale I could hear him chatting to the stall holder. I made my purchase and turned to see him holding a carrier bag. He said look what I've got! I opened the bag and inside were family history book's. The stall holder had been so impressed with him talking about what he knew of his family and how he knew of their lives he had given Adam around £30 of books to help him go further. I offered to pay but the man insisted. I was a very proud mum.
Keep at it the answers are out there..... ask lots.....take photos.
Good luck with the exams.
Tazzie
I will keep that in mind! I bet it really pleases you when you can see that your children share some of the same interests as you, it must give you a bit to bond over.
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Lovely to hear that you have such a great interest.
Don't forget to take plenty of photos while you can for future generations.
Enjoy
I will, I don't want to get older, then regret what I didn't do now. Thankyou :)
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I sketched out a rough tree based on family stories when I was at school but was about 22/23 before I started doing it properly and wished I had asked even more questions before it was too late. write down every story even if it sounds wrong or irrelevant just now. It may well be but you never know.
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I sketched out a rough tree based on family stories when I was at school but was about 22/23 before I started doing it properly and wished I had asked even more questions before it was too late. write down every story even if it sounds wrong or irrelevant just now. It may well be but you never know.
I totally agree, Pharma T. Not everyone was an officer in the army or navy, but if there's a story, then an ancestor probably was in the military. A lot of stories I was told starting out have proven wrong, but there is enough of the story in the truth.
I was told an ancestor helped invent a common pharmaceutical that we use today. The truth? An ancestor was a chemist, working for the Burroughs Wellcome Company. One of their claims to fame was developing Sudafed. How much he had to do with it, I don't know.