Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Excitement of Finding Your Family Roots
Have you ever wondered if one of your ancestors were a famous, important person? A President, or even a King or a Queen? Perhaps your last name is Washington, and you've always thought that perhaps you were a distant relative of the father of our country. If you've shown a flair for painting or writing, maybe you've fantasized that you inherited your talent from an ancestor with a name like Michaelangelo or Shakespeare.
Certainly, the heritage of each and every one of us is a fascinating topic. Who hasn't dreamed of origins, of people living in another place, in another time? Who hasn't seen an old photograph of a person to whom they bear a striking resemblance and thought, "I wonder if . . ?"
In this book, I will show you how the process of finding your family roots-known as "genealogy"-can act as a kind of time machine or magic carpet that allows you to travel back into the past. Once there, you can find out information that has helped to shape who you are-not only in terms of your physical appearance, but your personality, beliefs, habits, and skills as well. Additionally, this search for your roots will take you through time and space, from century to century and from state to state or even exotic country to country. Your search will give you a greater sense of exactly how you fit into this giant web of people and places that we call the history of mankind. And what's more, I'll show you how to do all of this in a simple, easy, and inexpensive manner.
How to Find Your Family Roots is not some academic report filled with complicated research techniques and impossible suggestions and instructions. Instead, I have written this book for people like you and me. People who are naturally curious. People who care about their family, who care about their heritage and want to find out valuable information and share it with other members of their clan and pass it on to future generations. You'll find that it's not only easy to find out a great deal of information about your family roots, it's also a lot of fun! Think of it like a giant jigsaw puzzle, of which you, your family, and your ancestors are the pieces!!
