Genealogy is pretty popular these days, and even some teenagers are getting into it. Other teenagers, though, think it’s just something for their grandparents to do. Why should a teenager care about family history?
Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Where did your skin color, hair color, and eye color come from? Why do you have curly hair instead of straight hair, or large eyes or small ears? Take inventory of your personality and talents. Who was the first artist in your family? Love to read—how many generations ago did the first person in your family learn to read? Why do you have a sense of adventure?
Chances are, all of this is inherited from someone in your past. You might have heard people tell you that you have your father’s athletic ability, but most likely, it goes much further back than your father. Who was the first track star in your family?
Family history, also known as genealogy, can tell you all of that. It isn’t just boring names and dates, although that’s some of it. Your family history is you. It tells you how you became you. The more you know about your ancestors, the more you’ll know about yourself.
When I was a teenager, I was already well on my way to becoming an author, which is what I am now. My mom loved to write, even though she didn’t try to get published. My parents both loved books. We had a house filled to the brim with them. My mom taught me to read when I was a preschooler. Books were really important to my whole family and we spent a lot of time reading. When I started learning about my family history, I couldn’t find any authors, but I did learn something that helped me understand why my family was so passionate about books.
On many census records, you can find out if your ancestor could read and write. I discovered some parts of my family had only been able to read for a few generations. When they finally learned, they were so excited and they made sure their children loved books and reading and understood what a great blessing it was to know how. Their children passed that on to their own children and by the time we got to my generation, only a few generations down, we’d produced authors and teachers and literacy program leaders. My career and my love for books all came because my great grandparents couldn’t read but desperately wanted to.
So what is in your family history that will tell you something about who you are? Remember that every one of your ancestors was once a teenager. When you’re researching, see what you can find out about their teen years. You’ll feel more connected to their teen lives than you will to their later adult lives. Look at where they lived and who lived with them. Were one of their parents dead? Did they have a large family? Were they rich or poor? Find out what historical events were going on during those years and how that might have affected their teenaged years. Compare their lives to your own.
You start your family history with you, and then work your way back. In my next post, we’ll talk about the most important person in your history—you—and find out how to make yourself into someone your descendants will be talking about one hundred years from now.