How did you get into researching?

[chrissiecruiser]

Hello all,
My mum died when I was 7yo, brought up by my older dad, very straightlaced. No information at all, but tucked away after dad's death was a leather tooled folder and in it a trove of information.
I found historical documents, beautiful pics of my actress gmother, and even a painted scene from a play in my ded's pow camp where he did the scenery.
It took a long time for me to get going, but I'm now a family tree tragic!
Cracked a brick wall yesterday, discovered my english family's emigration to oz! Only took 12 years!
Yay!!!!!!
Love your work!  Chris  ×××

[Ellenmai]

I started my search originally to find information on my Great Grandfather Thomas Smith born 1876. At my Grandmother's funeral chatting to various members of the family, not one knew where he came from & I still can't find him, but now have a Family Tree of over 1,820 & live in hope that one day I will find his birth family.

[Treetotal]

After both my Parents died  I became the custodian of paperwork and some of the photos which I stored in a folder. I then began researching Family History. That was around 20 years ago.
Carol

[ThrelfallYorky]

My father showed me a tree that his own father had written / drawn out about WW2 time, and gave me a copy of it. Later I got a slightly amended copy that a cousin of my father had done, modifying the original.... so far so good, interesting.....
Coming upon the trees many years later, after my own father's death, I noticed anomalies between them, and started trying to work out which was more accurate ( it was my grandfathers, his nephew had not been as good at researching as he thought he was, and had made some basic errors), and then I was helped by another cousin of my father, and she had done a much more accurate and well-documented job, recording church records, tithe roles etc., and then the husband of a friend of mine, who introduced me to using computers on it, and Ancestry, and tracked down a lot more of my paternal side, back to 1500s, as they'd been kind enough to be born, baptised, matched and buried in a small area, (with a not very usual surname) , and mostly at the same church. I'd got the idea it was quite easy to trace ancestors.
My maternal side proved far harder, the Scots were great, but indeed I've completely given up on the elusive Irish, not even certain if they really came from Northern or Southern Ireland, to be honest. Frustration. I may never know.
Then ... I got my own Ancestry account as a Christmas present from my OH, ... and then I got hooked on trying to do his side, where I started with only his grandmother's first name, and that she shared my own birthday, and had died very young, as idle comments to me by OH's mother. A couple of years later I'd got his line back to 1700s and found an interesting connection of his skills with the descendant of another line of his, who he had known, but not ever known that he was related to!
I've found some links to interesting people on the way, and gained a lot of interesting information - well, interesting to me, at least. It keeps me busy when I should be doing other things, and I'm really glad that my idle curiosity looking at two slightly different versions of hand drawn trees led me into finding out as much as I could.....
... and the road goes on.

[Familysearch]

As a child I remember being driven past a rather long wall. Behind that, I was told, was the house that belonged to my grandmothers family in years gone by. A few years later my father gave me a copy of a document that dated from the mid 1600s to 1825.
The document bore no resemblance to the family I knew, but was able finally (in the mid 1970s) to go to Somerset House in London to start researching.
I made the link between the generations, still can't prove if I am entitled to the house (!) but this got me onto family research.
FS

[pharmaT]

As a child I was fascinated with history in general.  Also as a child I was regularly told I wasn't welcome, an interlouper.  So I, once I got older decided to investigate where I came from to see if I belonged anywhere.  The rest as they say is history.

[frostyknight]

When I was at primary school we were given a project, a family tree, I was laughed at & felt humiliated in front of a whole class being told this was impossible (paternal line)!!! ...

                                                                     Annie                                                           
                                                                      1961
                                                    Father 1915                 
                                                 G/f 1888        1882 G/m
                                        G/gf 1866                       1864 G/gm

You decide whether it's possible/impossible?

Annie (with all the certs.) 

I can't see anything impossible about that?? What was the teacher's problem?  She certainly wouldn't have believed mine:

Me - 1958
Dad - 1920
G/f - 1876
G/gf - 1815

I became interested because of the stories from my Mam's side...and lack of info on my Dad's side.

Frostyknight

[cristeen]

After my grandmother passed in 2005 we discovered a carrier bag full of old family photos, among them a wedding photo which was clearly very old. I felt then that such things should be preserved for future generations and so started my journey. What a fascinating & emotional journey it has been 

[Rosinish]

I'm loving how different reasons brought us all into 'the hunt'! 

Ditto, each one different & just as fascinating as doing the research.

[/quote]
I got laughed at school once when we were given a family tree project and I couldn't fill out anything on my mum's father's line- the teacher was convinced that everyone must know their grandparents.. Got quite a shock when my mum marched in and announced herself to be a b*stard!!
[/quote]

Nothing like being upfront/truthful when your child has just been humiliated for being truthful 

To add to my own humiliation, around the same time as doing our family trees, the class were to watch a programme on tv (in class) & to my amazement a family featured were my paternal g/mother's neighbours who I'd chummed around with only the previous year whilst living with my g/m for a year, on a remote island in the Outer Hebrides (Scotland)!
When I mentioned I knew the family etc. I was met by frowns & other facial expressions which were evident I wasn't taken seriously.
The feeling from both events has left a mark on me all my life, wondering why I wasn't believed nor questioned about either to explain anything which would have proved I was telling the truth on both occasions.
The funny thing about it though, my father & g/m (as an islander) were very family history orientated i.e. I knew a huge amount of my paternal family history prior to my classroom tree, I just didn't have all the certs. to prove it sadly!

Annie

Add...FK, got alert when posting...

"I can't see anything impossible about that?? What was the teacher's problem?"

I wish I knew but I was never questioned on the dates i.e. I had no opportunity to explain anything but it seems Teachers were always right even if they were wrong 

Add...the above was early 1970s, long, long before I started doing serious research although all the date info. I had was correct from my g/mother with much, much more than was needed for that little direct line info...all now verified by certs.