What started your interest in genealogy?

[Peter_Martin]

I am not sure who will have the negative. It appears to be a studio portrait. This ancester lived in rural Ayrshire. So the picture could have been taken in Ayr or Kilmarnock or even Glasgow on a day out. The picture has a material backing and in pencil in very messy handwriting are the words "Special photographic paper".

[HollyElise]

hahahhaha! Well, that narrows it down, doesn't it?

[Ryan3932]

What started my interest in my family Genealogy was a book called "The First Hundred Years" about a town called Lantzville in British Columbia, Canada, which my ancestor first settled. My great-grandmother showed me this book just last year and it sparked an interest in me. Next thing I knew I was typing William Hinksman born 1841 into the Google search box. In about a month with some email messages back and forth from me to a genealogy super-fanatic distant Hinksman cousin of mine, My tree dated back to about 1656. To me Genealogy is not about stories and articles etc, it is about your ancestors, more specifically knowing who your ancestors were and where they had come from, knowing your lineage and genealogical background.


Best Wishes,
Ryan

[mamabaer16]

I never knew my grandfather, we were never even allowed to ask what happened to him. The story from my father (which was told to him by his mother) was that my grandfather left her with 3 young children my father was only 2. The problem is that my father's maternal grandfather always told him that his father (my dad's) was a good man. Always struck me odd that a father would stick up for a man who supposedly left his daughter! I believe there was a lot more to it. I know a few facts about my paternal grandfather, he was born in Edinborough, 8 Septemer 1884, and that he was a freemason - being a mason would be in direct contradiction to the things we were taught to believe - that he left my grandmother. I'm sure every family has a skeleton in their closet and I want to find the truth about the man I never knew. (He did try to contact my dad several times throughout his life, but my father being close to his mother would never even give his father a chance, he died believing his father abandoned him.)

[Auld Chiel]

All my dead relatives were so much more interesting than the living ones, not to mention that Brigadoom made the Auld Sod seem so much more appealing than the New World.

[mamabaer16]

I have been so fortunate in my search for family that I have actually found living family in Scotland, what an enormous blessing! I have had the opportunity to "Skype" with my second cousin. I have a photo of the grandfather I never knew, as well as photos of my great and great-great grandparents. It was all due to a post I made a decade ago. So for those who are just beginning, or who have been working, keep at it. If you are lucky you will be as blessed as I have been. It was really important for me to know my "roots", I've truly been blessed.