What is Genealogy?

Genealogy is checking ancestry one generation at a time. It can be as simple as a name, date of birth, date of marriage, children, date of death or these details can be expanded into a family history. Many times it is made up almost entirely of the male members of the family because in the early days of record keeping women were not often recorded. This gets harder as you go back more generations since it doubles with each generation.

To begin your search you will need to print out some genealogy charts from the internet. These have blank spots for names, spouses, children as well as birth dates and places. There are many good genealogy sites on the internet and many of them allow searches. You can post your genealogy on the internet so that if someone else is researching the same family you can pool the information you have. You will also want to print out or buy a family tree chart. These come in many forms from a basic tree to some very fancy charts.

In many countries where they have kings and queens the genealogy is very important. In many countries only males can be heirs to a throne. A king wishes to have a son to be heir to the throne since he feels the son is more of a continuation of himself. Looking back in history we find several kings who had their wives beheaded because they brought forth a female child instead of a male. In several countries even today genealogy plays a large part in who will be heir to the throne.