Getting to Know Your Ancestor Better

Hello everyone! Can you believe August is just about over and we will officially be in Fall in a few days? Wow, how time flies!

Wouldn’t it be fun to walk in your ancestor’s shoes? Who among you has done that yet? It could be going to a town that they lived in or doing a whole journey from your ancestor’s birth to their death. How would you go about doing that?

Getting Started

Think about what you can realistically do when getting to know your ancestor. Can you travel all the way to Norway or Sweden or Denmark right now or do you need to plan that for another year? This is how I answer that question when I want to get to know my ancestor’s better. Do I want to go deep or do I want to go wide?

This means do I want to stay in one location and dig up and experience everything that the location has to offer or do I want to hit the highlights of multiple locations? It could also mean do I want to know one ancestor deeply by diving into his/her life or do I want to know multiple people over a bigger time span hitting only the high notes of their lives.

Walking in their Shoes

I think back to the TV show “Who Do You Think You Are” that helps celebrities get to know their ancestors through records and experiences. The producers show their guests their ancestors through records, then they take them to the place where their ancestors lived so they can walk in their shoes. If this is interesting to you, then you might need to create this for your next vacation. I talked about genealogy travel in a blog post here if this seems doable to you.

You might also ask how can you walk in their shoes without physically going to the locations? Think about what you already do to honor your ancestors. Do you make family recipes? Do you proudly display military pictures or awards? Do you tell family stories at family reunions? What about family yearbooks or scrapbooks? Do those get pulled out on a regular basis so the next generation can know their family?

This is how I usually walk in my ancestor’s shoes. I have yet to create a vacation where I literally walk in my ancestor’s shoes along the paths that they walked. However, I’m not shy about doing some implied walking through recipes, stories, pictures, and family pedigree charts.

Do It!

I believe as genealogists we are all good at planning, but are we good or consistent about doing what we want to do with that plan. I know I need more work on this! I have all of these dreams about walking in their shoes, but I have yet to do an actual travel plan with those dreams.

So, for those of you like me who dream more than do. Now’s your chance to plan a “walk in their shoes” vacation with or without your current family and just do it. Your brain is going to give you many excuses why you shouldn’t do it right now. It’s inevitable! Instead of believing your brain, why not believe that maybe now is a good time to plan that summer vacation for next year or that Christmas vacation this year. Go walk in their shoes! I’m giving this advice to me as well as to you! Trust me, it’s time!

So…good luck and happy hunting!

Tiffany