By Kate Shilling — 11th August 2022
If you’ve ever wondered what life was like for your pioneering great-grand-parents, where your penchant for adopting stray cats comes from, or what the truth is behind an old family scandal, you’re not alone. With August marking the annual Family History Month in Australia and New Zealand, more people than ever before are delving into their family’s history and culture, researching historical events and connecting with long lost relatives.
Delving into your family history has surprising social and personal benefits that you’ve probably never considered. Read on to discover four reasons why digging up your family history can be life changing.
Deepen your identity and social connections
Learning more about your ancestors and the challenges they overcame expands your own sense of identity, adding texture and perspective to your understanding of your own life in the here and now. Researching your family history often has the happy side-effect of strengthening your relationships with loved ones as you interview elderly relatives and share your discoveries with siblings, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. As you investigate your ancestry, you’ll often have the chance to form new friendships with other family history seekers. Join your local historical societies and family history groups and enjoy the new social interactions they bring.
Add meaning and purpose to a family holiday
Whether you’re planning an overseas trip to Europe or a weekend away at an iconic historical hotel, a ‘family history holiday’ adds extraordinary colour and intrigue to your vacation. Family History Holidays connects family members by providing itineraries for memorable getaways centred around historical destinations or experiences relevant to your family. By connecting you to family history research tools and resources, Family History Holidays can help you walk in the footsteps of long lost relatives, shed light on the origins of family traditions and understand why certain destinations play a key role in your family tree, all while creating new, treasured family memories.
Learn something new
Our distant ancestors come to life as we discover where and how they lived, what was important to them and how they coped through major world events. Like an endless riddle, unearthing the secrets from the distant past can lead to many ‘ah ha’ moments as you stumble across new relatives or connections to places you never knew existed. Past generations not only teach you about your family tree, but can also deepen your understanding of how and why you came to be where you are today, adding a valuable sense of meaning to your life.
Who doesn’t love a good story?
Researching your family history is one of the most entertaining hobbies around. While most of us know the bare-bone facts of our family trees, adding stories to these facts brings it to life. How did Great Uncle Vince make his fortune during the Depression of the 1800s? What was distant-cousin Errol’s claim to fame that landed him in the newspapers nearly 200 years ago? How did Grandma cope when her husband was tragically killed in 1915? Your ancestors can become a source of great inspiration and wonder as you immerse yourselves in their lives of long ago.
