Take a look at the sites that are online that can help you find your family history. Ancestry.com is one of the oldest sites online that allows you to look up family records and find out about your relatives. You never know who you are going to find in your family history when you use this site.
Once you have your family history completed, it is a good idea to preserve it. You can do a scrapbook and include photos and documents that you find when you use online sites. This can be a great gift to give to someone in your family, or a good keepsake to keep for yourself and future generations.
Be prepared to hit a lot of dead ends when you are researching family history. You may find some family members who you would rather not acknowledge as well. A friend of mine was doing some family history research and found that she was related to Frank Nitti, who was the right hand man for Al Capone. This was something that she found embarrassing, but it is important to realize that you may find all sorts of people when you go online to look for your ancestors.
You never know who you may be related to distantly when you search out your family history. You may, like my friend, find that you are a descendant of a notorious gangster who wreaked havoc in Chicago in the 1930s. Or, you may find that you are the descendant of those who crossed the plains in a covered wagon. You may be related to a president, a movie star or just about anyone, depending how far we go back.
Or, like me, you might find that you are the descendent of a man who really gave my friend’s ancestor a really hard time back in the 1930s.
