An Expensive Habit

Genealogy can be an expensive habit! With the subscriptions, research time, document requests, binders, paper, storage, etc. Let’s not forget travel because you’re going to have to get from in front of the computer one day and do hands on research!! It takes a lot of tools and time to make researching our family trees possible. What I’m finding out is, my family doesn’t quite get the labor of love.

Most of the comments I received are “I don’t know how you do it”, “doesn’t that cost $$$”, “My brain would explode”, etc. I guess, you have to really love what you do in order to understand why people do it. I try to explain to people, it’s just like anything else they may love to do. No one else wants to do it, but for you, it’s easy! Well, genealogy isn’t easy, but for us who love doing it, our minds are already wired to think in these complicated manners. To try to connect the dots with solid lines and figure out how people are related. Painstaking research and most of the time, you get the smallest clues from your research. However, those little clues seem to be the most satisfying.

A path to one’s past is excellent framework to one’s future. Most African-American researchers want to know where they come from. That’s why we research our trees so tirelessly. Our family is fascinated by the clues we’ve come up with. We can see leaving this legacy of information to our children. There is reward in our work. That’s why most of the time, those of us who have to spend the money to get a clue solved don’t mind so much. There is something in it for us.