5 Perks of Knowing Your Family History {Guest Post}

The last few months I have been very interested in learning more about my family history!  I love getting on Family Search and Ancestory and discovering more about my ancestors.  I’m excited to have this guest post today from Christine Hill about the 5 Perks of Knowing Your Family History!  

5 Perks of Knowing Your Family History

By Christine H.

This last holiday season, many of us spent time with family. It’s possible that you spent hours by the fire listening to a grandparent tell stories about the old days, or reminiscing with your parents. The blessings of a family are too many to name here, but I have to say that one of them is in those very stories, long and rambling though they might tend to be. Understanding more about the stories that came before us, and the people who built us, can be key in understanding ourselves. As Marcus Garvey says, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” However, knowing about your family history isn’t just about theoretical and interest benefits. It can also be very practical. Here are 5 benefits that come with knowing more about your family history.

Understanding Physical Health Risks

Just as much as we pass on our height or bone structure to our children, we can also pass on genetic risks for certain diseases and disorders. For example, glaucoma is hereditary, and its onset can be sudden and surprising, leading to total blindness in some cases. Knowing that you’re at risk for glaucoma helps you to set up screenings and tests that will detect early warning signs and help you preserve your sign. The same thing goes for heart issues, diabetes, and many kinds of cancer. Additionally, knowing what health issues you could be subject to, genetically, can help you to make lifestyle changes now that will allow you to counter the onset of disease.

Understanding Mental Health History

Every person is different. However, the mental attributes that are passed from parent to child might surprise us. Although no era has understood as much about mental health as we do now, there are many issues today that can be traced back through family lines. For example, addiction, while also influenced by many environmental factors, can be attributed in a substantial way to genetics, as you can learn here. Bipolar disorder and depression also have strong genetic links. Mental illness can be incredibly confusing and isolating when you don’t have a name for it. However, there are many ways to treat it and continue to live a productive life. Forewarned is forearmed, and understanding your family history can help you sooner identify problems that drag you down.

Better Communication with Loved Ones

Even though we share so much DNA with our family, sometimes it can seem that our parents come from another planet. And then there are the difficulties of understanding our own teenage children! Have you ever considered that knowing more about your family history can help you better deal with your family members? Understanding the backgrounds and family situations of those who have gone before us can help us to also understand behavioral quirks, strengths, and fears. Additionally, when a new member of your family shows great-grandma’s stubborn streak, you can quickly recognize it and learn from great-grandma’s experiences in order to turn the attribute into a strength.

Inspiring Stories of Strength

Speaking of strength, it’s often astounding to learn about the things that our predecessors survived and built during their time. Without modern conveniences and medicine, they often endured great hardship to build the foundation on which you and your family are now living. Knowing that that strength is a part of your own story can help you confront challenges in your own life as they come.

Closer Kinship with History

Sometimes, family history isn’t just about learning the stories of individuals. It’s the story of a town, a state, a culture, and even a nation. Historical topics that used to be dry can be given amazing new life when you realize that it was your own great-great grandparents who lived out the Industrial Revolution, or when you know where your parents were during the Civil Rights movement.

Modern life is rife with quandaries of race, politics, social class, and all of these issues have roots that go far back, just like our family history does. Understanding the choices that our ancestors made can help us to learn from the past and make positive choices in the future that benefit our children and our children’s children too.

Tips for Researching and Recording Family History

• Keep your own journal.
• Record conversations with parents and grandparents with a handheld recorder like this.
• Research the history of cities and regions where your ancestors lived – many places have resources for local history that aren’t easily found in a cursory search.
• Subscribe to an online service that delves into ancestral files, there are so many available now, such as Ancestry.com, Archives.com, and Findmypast.com.