What do you wish you'd know about family history research before you started?

[Maggsie]

I was born 50 years to the date that my Great Gran died.
My Great Granddaughter was born on my Mothers birthday and also the day that my Gran died.
Another Great Granddaughter was born on the date my Mother died.
My Great Grandson was born on my first cousin Birthday that was 3 years after he died.
Maggsie

[Kiltpin]

I wish I had known to have started 20 years before I did. My Mother, aunt and two uncles would still have been alive and compos mentis.   

Regards 

Chas

[Rattus]

I was definitely interested at an early age and I remember talking to my grandparents about it, but so many of those memories are lost. We all owned cassette recorders, I wish I'd had realised just how important it was to document things. My grandpa's brother was interviewed by the local family history society and thirty years later I have that recording. I wish I'd known how much I would regret not taking the opportunity to do something similar myself. And I will no doubt make the same mistake with my own parents.

[coombs]

I wish i had known that ages and birthplaces on census records can be inaccurate as I assumed my ancestor's age being a year younger on the 1901 census (when released in 2002) meant it was another man of the same name. Several certs bought proved it was not another man. Prior to 2002 I had a few notes and did some basic genealogy but only knew of great grandparents, and 2 or 3 great, great grandparents.

[brigidmac]

I recorded my aunt when she was 92 telling stories about her grandparents and uncles and holidays in Glasgow in the early 1930's

Gives real insight into life in the tenements and miners lives
 
I have shared the recordings with DNA matches who also had mining families
Even if they were cousins .

I must get around to asking my mum to do a recording
She was recently interviewed about life as an evacuee in world war 2 from Liverpool to Wales

[Enumerated]

I wish I had known that not all births were registered in the early years of civil registration. I bought the 1846 birth certificate for George, son of George and Jane, thinking it was my great grandfather as it was the only one in the right area. I spent some time researching this family getting several generations back. I think it was discovering a census record for the right George, also son of George, that made me realise I had been following a false trail and that my great grandfather's birth had not been registered.

This was in the old days before the Internet when searching the census meant scrolling through microfilm in the County Record Office. I doubt it would happen nowadays - if I had found all the census records first I would have known that his mother was not called Jane and therefore I had the wrong birth certificate.

[Jill Eaton]

I wish I'd realised how involved it would become and made notes of my discoveries accordingly.
I presumed I would remember how and where I made discoveries only to find that with so much to remember I've forgotten to record information as I've gone along.

I also wish I'd quizzed my parents when they were still alive.

[coombs]

I wish I had known that not all births were registered in the early years of civil registration. I bought the 1846 birth certificate for George, son of George and Jane, thinking it was my great grandfather as it was the only one in the right area. I spent some time researching this family getting several generations back. I think it was discovering a census record for the right George, also son of George, that made me realise I had been following a false trail and that my great grandfather's birth had not been registered.

This was in the old days before the Internet when searching the census meant scrolling through microfilm in the County Record Office. I doubt it would happen nowadays - if I had found all the census records first I would have known that his mother was not called Jane and therefore I had the wrong birth certificate.

I ordered a birth for someone who I thought was my ancestor in 1856 but it was his namesake first cousin. I then found out that one birth was registered, one wasn't, one died as a child, one didn't. I then found baptisms of both cousins on the same day in April 1856, their fathers Robert and Thomas were brothers.