The Importance of Tracing Your Roots

​Genealogy is about more than simply tracing your family tree. It’s also about discovering your true heritage, piecing together your family’s story, and maybe even about creating a family medical history. Discovering all about your family is an opportunity for learning as well as a hobby. It can take you across continents and through time.

​Getting Started

Most people who research their families will start with their parents or even their grandparents and move back in time from there. For example, if you want to research your Jewish American Genealogy you should visit GenealogyBank and start your journey. You might be surprised at how easy it is to find out your family history and potentially connect with a few members that are still alive.

​Records Are Important

Tracing your family heritage will give you exposure to quite a few different types of personal records. What you’ll find in these might surprise you. As an example, death records will give you clues to any sort of prominent illnesses that might be present in your family tree. Death records that are older might also have causes of death that aren’t typical, which then gives you interesting information for your family stories. 


Baptism and birth records will also tell you quite a bit about people, including who was present when they were born. These clues can then assist you when it comes to finding those obscure people in the family who don’t appear anywhere else. Wills and land records can also contain important information regarding the people your family dealt or associated with while they were alive. 


It might not be too surprising to find that many of these types of records will involve in-laws that you’ll now be able to trace with ease. Records of this nature also hold correct information regarding how names were spelled as well as birth dates and places. Family stories and lore might have one way the story goes, but the actual records will have the truth of the matter.

A Few More Reasons

• Some people might pursue their familial knowledge in an effort to determine if they’re related to any famous people in history.
• People might also want to determine how their ancestors were involved in well-known historical events.
• People also use this method to determine genealogical proof when it comes to family connections for potential heirs.
• If you were adopted, you might get into genealogy to find out about your biological family. On the other hand, it can also be used to find children who were put up for adoption.

​In Closing

Genealogy is a task that’s quite important for everyone. It gives you a way to bridge a connection to the past while also building a future. Genealogy can give you a better sense of your roots and create a sense of familial pride.