A Memorable Day...

This may seem like an odd thing to blog about but #OTD (On this Day) in 2017, I started my genealogy journey to preserve my family's history and make sure my ancestors lived on. But for those of you who don't know my genealogy story, keep reading...

So how did I start? Well it had been 5 days since my granduncle passed away and a load of thoughts went rushing through my head about how much I really knew about my family and funnily enough I didn't really know much other than my grandfather (who would unfortunately pass away later that year...) who was still alive and talking a little bit about my dad's parents (names and little family stories) and I began to ask my mum & dad more and more about their families, some questions they could answer and some they could not and on that night I began a family tree that I thought I would lose interest in after a week or so but the thirst for more knowledge did last, although all I knew how to do was just do a basic family tree online.

Then we went to visit my dad's cousin and I showed her what I had done on the family tree and she was impressed & she actually had quite a lot of information that advanced my further up my family tree and that's when she brought up about using a website that could give you images of birth entries older than 100 years ago, marriages older than 75 years & deaths older than 50 years. I was silly enough to dismiss the idea and quickly retracted the statement about a week later!

Then I began thinking what other sources I could find information in... Newspapers, trade directories, naturalisation forms, baptisms, court documents, wills. The list goes on! And spread out over 2018 & up to June 2019 I had done a lot of my research and built it up into a monster of a tree

After showing my uncle countless updates about my tree, he then saw that I had a niche for family history and then suggested that I do a genealogy blog. Again I was silly enough to dismiss it because then I started questioning about how to do it, I decided to give it a go and on June 18th 2019, that's when "Daniel's Genealogy" was born! I started my blog on Instagram and slowly accumulated followers and people interested in a 15 y/o (at the time) that is really into genealogy & that he had started his journey at age 13. Then about a week or so later I called my uncle again and told him about all the positive feedback I was getting for doing it & then he said that I should start my own website. Yet again (you're starting to see a pattern here aren't you?) I dismissed the idea and then started it and I honestly have enjoyed it.

Then I chose to expand my blog to Twitter and boy, was I welcomed with open arms by the genealogy community on there. I loved (and of course I still do) the amount of support and tips I was getting from the community and I  have doubted myself a few times about doing it but I'm glad I didn't stop because after all, patience and determination are the No. 1 requirements to do anything you want in life and thankfully I found plenty of it to do this and I'm honestly proud of myself that I saw it through.

Lastly, thank you for taking 5 minutes to read my story. Hope you enjoyed it and thank you for sticking with me! As always, stay tuned for more!