When you start on the journey to discover your family history, there are many wonderful things you can learn and discover through the discovery of your family and their history.
By researching your family history, you can learn about new family members you did not know about. You will learn about the place where your family once lived. And finally, you can discover the traditions and culture of the country your ancestors once lived.
Table of Contents
- Discovering Who You Are Through Family History
- 3 Things You Can Discover Through Making Your Family History
- Related Questions
This is why we love to learn about our family history. There are so many wonderful things you can learn about yourself and your family.
Discovering Who You Are Through Family History
One of the best things about being involved in your family history discovery is learning many things about yourself and your family. Some of them are good, and others can be bad, but they help us discover more about who we are at the end of the day.
Terry Pratchett, the author of Shall Wear Midnight, said this about the importance of knowing who you are and where you have come from:
“It is important that we know where we come from, because if you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”
Terry Pratchett
Knowing where you came from and where you are going can help you to discover who you are. And a big way you can do this is by discovering your family history,
3 Things You Can Discover Through Making Your Family History
You can discover many things as you do your Family History work. But here are our top 3 things that we feel anyone can discover.
Discover Family
One of the greatest blessings of doing family history research is that you start to discover your family and even discover a family that you did not know you had.
The Corpse, the Doctor, and the Pot
Dr. Louis George Hummel was a very dedicated doctor, and he is a great Uncle. During the depression, he was known to help his patients still take vegetable produce, a pig, or anything else instead of paying for his medical treatment.
Before Dr. Louis George Hummel became a doctor, he saw a corpse on the side of the road. Wanting to study more about anatomy, he brought the corpse home and boiled it up in his mother’s cast iron pot so that he could use the corpse’s skeleton to study anatomy.
That pot is still in the Hummel Family. I learned not only what a dedicated doctor, Dr. Louis George Hummel was to boil up a corpse in a pot so he could get the skeleton to study anatomy but also how patient his mother, Mary Stretcher Hummel, must have been even to allow him to do it.
Family History work allows you to discover your family. Many have passed on, but others are still living. It allows you to know more about them and their lives and to learn from them.
Discover History
If you love history, then family history is something you should be doing. You will learn so much history as you research your family history.
A Baron, Castle, and A Beheading
I had a great-grandfather who lived in Scotland in the 1750s, Baron James Johnston. He was the 3rd of three sons of Baron James Johnston.
They lived in a castle, and one day his father, two older brothers, and uncles went to a meeting. They never returned, as they were all beheaded on their way home.
I have been trying to discover the Scottish Castle where the James Johnston family lived. And to learn a bit more about the beheading of these relatives. So far, I have not had any luck, but I have sure enjoyed getting to know a lot about Scotland and this period of Scottish history that is did not know before.
Discover Culture & Traditions
Knowing where you have come from can help you and your family build positive family traditions and memories. This will help you not only link the generations but also to help link your living family memories. Discovering your family history also helps you discover the culture of your family’s origins.
The Swedish Christmas
Christmas Eve in our home is not Christmas unless we have a Swedish Smorgasbord. This is a tradition I remember us doing my entire life. We will eat traditional Swedish food such as Swedish meatballs, Jansson’s Temptation, Swedish potatoes with anchovies, rice pudding, Swedish beet salad, and even tiny Swedish hotdogs. Each year we all look forward to having our Christmas Swedish Smorgasbord.
Once our Christmas smorgasbord is completed, we will dance Christmas dances to traditional Swedish songs. Some of these dances can be quite rowdy, as the old and young all join in and have a great time.
Discovering your cultural heritage helps you also to build uplifting family traditions. It helps to give you and your family a cultural identity.
Family History is a great way to discover who you are and your family is. Your family history research gives you information about your family, family history, and cultural identity.
Related Questions
Who Was Johann Gottlieb Hummel?
Johann Gottlieb Hummel was born in Erdmannhausen, Württemberg, Germany in 1829. He married Marie (Mary) Magdalene Strecker in 1856 in Poppenweiler, Germany. Mary and Gottlieb had five children. Their oldest son Christian Gottlieb Hummel was born in Poppenweiler, Germany, in 1858, but he only survived five months.
You can discover more about Mary and Johann Gottlieb Hummel by reading the blog Johann Gottlieb Hummel, His Life and Story by clicking here.
Who Was Marie (Mary) Magdalene Strecker Hummel?
Marie (Mary) Magdalena Strecker Hummel was a widow at 40, having been married only 12 short years. At the time of Gottlieb’s death in 1868, they had three living children, ages 7, 5, and 2 years old, with an unborn son who would be born seven months after his father’s death.
You can discover more by reading the blog Marie (Mary) Strecker Hummel, Her Life and Story by clicking here.
