Why Sharing Family History is Important Right Now

It's only when I share family history that I understand why I spend so much time doing family history.

Denyse Allen

Oct 22, 2022 • 1 min read

What is all this family history for anyway?

That’s the question I ask myself often. (In fact, in this last post I made.) I don’t descend from anyone famous, rich, or historically important. I don’t seek any status from a lineage society.

And it’s only when I share something I found, that I understand why I keep doing family history.

This past week I put myself back in the time when Philadelphia was one of the ship building centers of the country. I found an ink sketch of the Navy Ship Yard on the Library of Congress website from around the 1830’s. There was what now call a “tall ship” in the center, and in the back ground hundreds of other tall ships at the docks. Immediately I could imagine what it was like to be there on those docks, seeing the ships bob up and down in the water.

My ancestors (and yours!) depended on ships like those to transport what they needed up and down the coasts, and across the oceans. And they built those ships with hand tools!

Suddenly, the problems I have now seem possible to overcome.

The more present I am to my ancestors’ lives, the more peaceful and centered I am. All of you reading this might be the only people who could possible understand this feeling.

Sharing family history helps others become grounded in the past and imagine overcoming today’s problems. Imagining the lives of our ancestors seems to both strengthen us and make us happy. I’m for more of that!