I want to share a new hobby of mine, because I think it is interesting to know how hobbies arise. Whenever I went to family gatherings I was always confused over who was who, and I didn’t understand why we had to take hour-long drives to see people we only saw a few times. Then when the pandemic happened, I was looking for something to do while I was inside the house and I started thinking about my family members. Learning their names and how we were related made our connection feel important.
I decided I should make a digital family tree of sorts so I’d have a list to refer to help me understand connections. As I built the tree, I became interested in learning about my ancestors, realizing they helped shape who I am and who the rest of my family is today. People often ask me if I used Ancestry.com to make the tree, but that is only one source in my system. I found a website called Find a Grave that provided me with their birthdates, death dates, relatives, and sometimes gravestones depending on if there was a picture of them. I also use websites such as Ancestry, Geni, WikiTree, and the app Family Tree.
With my tree in place, I began looking forward to family gatherings. I still struggle with talking to people and it’s not always fun, but I started forming relationships that I didn’t have before. Since I started the tree in 2020 I’ve been able to find thousands of relatives that go back many generations, the earliest dating to the 1600s.
In addition to the tree, through this process I also found out that people use Find a Grave to put out photo requests for family gravesites that they cannot get to themselves. I decided to check out cemeteries near me where there were requests and was fascinated to learn every cemetery has Find a Grave requests. The experience is a bit like Word Finder coupled with exercise. I don’t always find the people on the request list, but I feel very accomplished when I do because it’s hard to accomplish and I like that I am helping someone connect with their relatives.
Additionally, after thoroughly researching my own family, I decided to look into the children of celebrities, simply because I wanted to know who was who, like with my family. I can now name the kids of any celebrity I know of, in birth order. This includes actors, singers, presidents, and athletes. I also keep track of their siblings, but that’s not as easy to find. Everyone who I share my ability with is either impressed or terrified or both. Ask me if you want to.
