What is Family History?

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Although the terms Genealogy and Family History are often interchanged, strictly speaking, if you only collected the Birth, Death and Marriage dates of your ancestors, you are only undertaking Genealogy research and not Family History research.

However, as there is no right or wrong way to research your family’s history, if this is all the information you wish to obtain that is perfectly fine. The choice is yours!

But, if you are anything like me, you love to find out all the details and want to know more than just the Birth, Death and marriage dates.

(For more clarification on this point, please read the post What is Genealogy?).

So, when we are talking about Family History, as it relates to the extremely popular and addictive pass time of researching your family ancestry (whether Maternal, Paternal or both), you are building on the research of “Genealogy” by finding out information about your ancestors that then adds the “colour” or “body” which allows you to build up the life story of each ancestor, thereby making the lives of each your ancestors real and relevant.

It is the how , the when, the where, and if possible the why the of their existence, and can include information on their everyday lives such as their work, their play, their loves, their fears and their personal relationships.

You can also think of it like this: genealogy is like a simple sketch on a piece of paper, while family history is the same sketch with the backgrounds, details and colour added.

It also places these events into the context of the social, economic and historical world in which your ancestors lived and can sometimes reveal surprising, and emotional stories that strengthens your understanding of who you are.

This research is then documented and shared with other family members and is quite often published as a book.