Sheila here. Thank you so much! I too struggle with guilt for not journaling, in my spiritual life as well as my genealogical research life. I love the study, the research, and I don’t even mind the recording and sourcing. As a matter of fact, when it’s time to write out each ancestor’s history, my plan is to feed the info into a large-language model, and let it do the writing for me. I like editing something already written. There’s only so much time in a day. Do what I love and use technology as a tool to make it happen!
Here’s a “man’s” genealogy personal guilt. My work requires me to deal with computers all day long. Most of the time many more than 50+ hours a week. Then on call after hours. As much as I want to sit down and work on my tree I can’t bring myself to face that computer screen one more time many days. I feel guilty that my true pleasure, joy & hobby that I love is taking a back seat to a job that seems to rob me more and more of that outside opportunity for relief. There you go! Thanks for the great videos. I love them all. They do inspire me.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoy the videos. You know, I actually can totally relate. When I started working professionally, I stopped working on my tree, almost entirely. I’m trying to remedy that. But at the end of the day, often the last thing I want to do is more genealogy. That’s part of the reason. I started the live stream for Aimee‘s Crew. It forces me to work on my own tree. I really glad you shared your perspective. I am quite sure you are not alone and others will appreciate it.
I struggle with having compiled so much information and photos but not knowing how to present this information to my family. I created a FB family history page with about 135 people. I’ve put an expansive family tree. Collected home movies and also posted pics and an Ancestor spotlight document to highlight one side of my ancestry. I’ve started trees on Ancestry, Family search, My Heritage and created a Find A Grave family cemetery but can’t quite get a good one size fits all to invite everyone to view. I’m a former journalist so writing and research aren’t as much of an issue, but I’m overwhelmed and feel guilty that I’ve amassed all this history and it’s stored all over the place.
That’s impressive!! I think it’s hard because people are attracted to different things. So sometimes having it in some different places isn’t really bad because you are reaching somebody through that medium. Since you’re a journalist, what about publishing a book that could be preserved in libraries. One other option is a family webpage.
I really needed this today. I've been "under the weather" for a month now, including Christmas, and just haven't had the energy to do anything, including genealogy which I love. But now I'm ready to get back to it!
My guilt is sometimes I feel like a stalker LOL! Especially when working down a branch....finding living relatives and their information. I am also terrible at journalling, sourcing....it's a struggle.
My genealogy research has uncovered all kinds of sins, including several murders, a handful of suicides, one murder-suicide, a kidnapping, frauds, thefts, jail time, court cases. and of course more out-of-wedlock births and conceptions than a person can count. My suspicion is that for every such "sin" I uncover, there are a dozen more that stay hidden away. There's *no way* I'm going to feel guilty about how I do (or don't do) genealogy.
@AncestryAimee it might make an interesting episode on how to research or confirm events like that. I spent weeks trying to confirm the kidnapping, and whether the young woman taken was released safely. Turned out to be an interesting story.
I plan to work on genealogy every day, as a job, and one that I love. Unfortunately, sometimes it feels like it's only a job to me, not to my family in my house. Working from home, there's always someone else who needs me to do something. My husband also works from home quite a bit, and doesn't see genealogy as "a job." I basically feel guilty when I do work on genealogy and then guilt when I don't get to work on it! The main library I use is undergoing renovations and closed til spring, so I can't even work out of there - but I'm counting down the days until I can get back in the library!
It is hard to work from home. I feel like it can be a blessing and a curse. The flexibility is wonderful but the isolation isn’t always great. Thanks for sharing!!
I struggle with perfectionism and making sure everyone is complete and all the sources are complete. But I decided that if I do it all, then my genealogy loving daughter won't have any research to do in my family lines. And she loves doing research! So I'm focusing more on telling my ancestors' stories and my own life stories. Though, I do have a brick wall I hope to make a dent in this year. :)
Boy Kim that’s a common one. I did a video about that. It went from basically just write something in the description box to how to do a full citation.
Guilt seeps in when there is opposition to uncovering the past. Everything from wasting time to living in the past as a mental health issue. Yeah there's a secret to be had im pretty sure of it. So I joined a library group with a librarian who gives us new groups of sources every month. They are unknowingly creating more story kind of confirming what I found already. No wonder my Dad left and never let me visit or meet them.
Thank you for this video! I am new to Genealogy and ordered an Ancestry DNA kit. I am in my 50s and my parents are still alive. We know a fair amount of our ancestors. Late 1800s. One line is Italian. One line has Native American far back we were told. Both parents in good health. Between the 3 of us, who do you recommend do this test kit? Thank you!!😊
Great question! I would have both parents test. The further back in the family line, the better the matches will be, especially when working back into your tree and trying to find folks. If you have both parents tested, you really don't need to test yourself. You'll also get all their DNA, not just the 50% you received from each of them. They can share their DNA results to you and both use the same tree, which will simplify things for you. If you need help with that, you may want to check out group coaching ($35) and I could walk you through it. You can sign up at www.patreon.com/aimeecross/membership.
Thank you Aimee. When you say share the same tree, how does that work? I ordered the kit and got the Ancestry membership for $1 under my name. I started a tree with about 20 names starting with myself. My Dad will be taking the DNA test - he doesn't want to do anything on Ancestry - he is just doing this for me. Does he have to create a free tree, etc? Thank you!:) @@AncestryAimee
I have two individuals on my mothers side, and I think they are hiding something from me because I can not get their correct information on them. It's just frustrating. So real soon, I am going back after them.
And sometimes it's a generational thing. That's true in my late parent's generation and their parents. My father was illegitimate though everyone in his family in the area seemed to know who the guy was except for my father and us kids. However doing family history I find NO examples in his direct line. My maternal grandmother made some cutting remarks in the past when my parents wanted to become £10 poms in the 50s. The irony is that it is on my mother's side that I'm finding examples. Victorian attitudes strike again.@@AncestryAimee
In general (not specifically regarding genealogy), I think men are capable of feeling tremendous amounts of guilt, and even being controlled by it. However, they set a much narrower bandwidth of who they will accept that guilt from.
Men can definitely brush things off but I wouldn't necessarily call that a healthy thing 😂 I do just want to add as I'm beginning this video it's been in my to watch list and I'm getting started now. I just wanted to say that I have had a few moments of guilt through my research. But I would say that the most I had to come in on the day whenever I discovered that my family owned three famine ship boats during the slave trade. It took a lot to digest that information. So in writing a book about it to tell the stories and make the histories known.
Great topic Aimee! I had totally given up on researching my immigrant family because of the difficulties in reading and also finding the documents. It was overwhelming. That is my dad's entire line that I gave up on. Talk about feeling guilty! Now that I have a 3rd cousin that lives in Germany who I'm trying to figure out the connection to, having someone who is a native speaker is certainly helping me flesh out at least my paternal grandmother's side!
I guess I feel guilt, but it's more about finding relatives, like a father or half-siblings, and them not being interested or being hostile because I didn't find them sooner. Or because I'm not super rich and successful. Or because I don't know enough about the culture I never grew up in.
I don’t get the guilts luckily but I do struggle with getting my head around cMs values and which distance to relatives they might apply to and the jumps to once/twice removed etc, meaning if I know I should be looking for a second cousin or perhaps in the removed category, where exactly to look in my own tree. Or if I’m looking at a dna match’s tree, where I should be looking based on cMs shared. I’ve watched a few vids but hasn’t fully sunk in!!
No secret sauce but live each day happy in my choices and making sure all of us are content but no one costs any other undue stress. That means I might put my own needs higher up the ladder but still think abt my family’s needs within that. Leads for a happy life for all of us!
Hard to write that history down for the generations, easy to click a bunch of hints on ancestry. 😅 Mostly though, i feel guilty about not organizing and preserving all those papers and photos in my basement! Thanks for the great video as always!
I struggle with focusing on just one person at a time to search in the recent past. I said no to that this year!! Focusing on one great grandparent at a time. Lol
@@AncestryAimee I use familysearch mostly ,I have a tree there and one at Myheritage and use Ancestry as well I find them to be the best 3 to use you are more then welcome to check the Tupper family out as we are of one family around the world well at least 80 to 90% witch we are all working on
I would love to see a write up on one or two of your ancestors to show how you do it. I struggle with writing up interesting stories about each ancestor / family, that other people would like to read. Suggestions? ideas? What I do badly? Organizing my research findings. I end up with large random unorganized piles of paper and a large unorganized down load folder on my computer. I'm like a squirrel in the middle of the road. I jumping from person to person, not getting to a good stopping point.
Sheila here. Thank you so much! I too struggle with guilt for not journaling, in my spiritual life as well as my genealogical research life. I love the study, the research, and I don’t even mind the recording and sourcing. As a matter of fact, when it’s time to write out each ancestor’s history, my plan is to feed the info into a large-language model, and let it do the writing for me. I like editing something already written. There’s only so much time in a day. Do what I love and use technology as a tool to make it happen!
I love that!!! And you’re right. With ChatGPT and other AI tools we are really close to have super results with that! You’ve inspired me!!! Thanks!
Great advice!
Glad you think so!
Here’s a “man’s” genealogy personal guilt. My work requires me to deal with computers all day long. Most of the time many more than 50+ hours a week. Then on call after hours. As much as I want to sit down and work on my tree I can’t bring myself to face that computer screen one more time many days. I feel guilty that my true pleasure, joy & hobby that I love is taking a back seat to a job that seems to rob me more and more of that outside opportunity for relief. There you go! Thanks for the great videos. I love them all. They do inspire me.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoy the videos. You know, I actually can totally relate. When I started working professionally, I stopped working on my tree, almost entirely. I’m trying to remedy that. But at the end of the day, often the last thing I want to do is more genealogy. That’s part of the reason. I started the live stream for Aimee‘s Crew. It forces me to work on my own tree. I really glad you shared your perspective. I am quite sure you are not alone and others will appreciate it.
Love the message here. You’re so cute with your attitude. “Let it go.”
Thanks my friend!
I struggle with having compiled so much information and photos but not knowing how to present this information to my family. I created a FB family history page with about 135 people. I’ve put an expansive family tree. Collected home movies and also posted pics and an Ancestor spotlight document to highlight one side of my ancestry. I’ve started trees on Ancestry, Family search, My Heritage and created a Find A Grave family cemetery but can’t quite get a good one size fits all to invite everyone to view. I’m a former journalist so writing and research aren’t as much of an issue, but I’m overwhelmed and feel guilty that I’ve amassed all this history and it’s stored all over the place.
That’s impressive!! I think it’s hard because people are attracted to different things. So sometimes having it in some different places isn’t really bad because you are reaching somebody through that medium. Since you’re a journalist, what about publishing a book that could be preserved in libraries. One other option is a family webpage.
I really needed this today. I've been "under the weather" for a month now, including Christmas, and just haven't had the energy to do anything, including genealogy which I love. But now I'm ready to get back to it!
Thank you! I was wondering if I should have done it today!
@@AncestryAimee perfect timing!
My guilt is sometimes I feel like a stalker LOL! Especially when working down a branch....finding living relatives and their information. I am also terrible at journalling, sourcing....it's a struggle.
Love it! We are stalkers I guess!
My genealogy research has uncovered all kinds of sins, including several murders, a handful of suicides, one murder-suicide, a kidnapping, frauds, thefts, jail time, court cases. and of course more out-of-wedlock births and conceptions than a person can count. My suspicion is that for every such "sin" I uncover, there are a dozen more that stay hidden away. There's *no way* I'm going to feel guilty about how I do (or don't do) genealogy.
Genealogy is definitely messy! Those things don’t bother me tremendously either.
@AncestryAimee it might make an interesting episode on how to research or confirm events like that. I spent weeks trying to confirm the kidnapping, and whether the young woman taken was released safely. Turned out to be an interesting story.
Great idea!
I plan to work on genealogy every day, as a job, and one that I love. Unfortunately, sometimes it feels like it's only a job to me, not to my family in my house. Working from home, there's always someone else who needs me to do something. My husband also works from home quite a bit, and doesn't see genealogy as "a job." I basically feel guilty when I do work on genealogy and then guilt when I don't get to work on it! The main library I use is undergoing renovations and closed til spring, so I can't even work out of there - but I'm counting down the days until I can get back in the library!
It is hard to work from home. I feel like it can be a blessing and a curse. The flexibility is wonderful but the isolation isn’t always great. Thanks for sharing!!
What a great topic! Thanks for the encouraging and refreshing approach!
Thank you!
I struggle with perfectionism and making sure everyone is complete and all the sources are complete. But I decided that if I do it all, then my genealogy loving daughter won't have any research to do in my family lines. And she loves doing research! So I'm focusing more on telling my ancestors' stories and my own life stories. Though, I do have a brick wall I hope to make a dent in this year. :)
Love that perspective! Thanks for sharing.
I hate citing sources. I always overthink it and then sometimes just give up and don’t do it. I feel extreme guilt over it.
Boy Kim that’s a common one. I did a video about that. It went from basically just write something in the description box to how to do a full citation.
@@AncestryAimeeI’ll watch that video Aimee and maybe I can do better. Thanks for the encouragement!
It’s either this video Inserting Citations (for BETTER family history)
ua-cam.com/video/uFEDOZ_0Sug/v-deo.html
Or this one The Most Important Tip for GOOD Genealogy = Sources (+ My SOURCE WRITING HACK)
ua-cam.com/video/B2BuD0EGBgE/v-deo.html
Guilt seeps in when there is opposition to uncovering the past. Everything from wasting time to living in the past as a mental health issue. Yeah there's a secret to be had im pretty sure of it. So I joined a library group with a librarian who gives us new groups of sources every month. They are unknowingly creating more story kind of confirming what I found already. No wonder my Dad left and never let me visit or meet them.
Thanks for sharing your story.
You spend 5 minutes describing what economists would say is "to find your comparative advantage."
🤣 true!
Thank you for this video! I am new to Genealogy and ordered an Ancestry DNA kit. I am in my 50s and my parents are still alive. We know a fair amount of our ancestors. Late 1800s. One line is Italian. One line has Native American far back we were told. Both parents in good health. Between the 3 of us, who do you recommend do this test kit? Thank you!!😊
Great question! I would have both parents test. The further back in the family line, the better the matches will be, especially when working back into your tree and trying to find folks. If you have both parents tested, you really don't need to test yourself. You'll also get all their DNA, not just the 50% you received from each of them.
They can share their DNA results to you and both use the same tree, which will simplify things for you. If you need help with that, you may want to check out group coaching ($35) and I could walk you through it. You can sign up at www.patreon.com/aimeecross/membership.
Thank you Aimee. When you say share the same tree, how does that work? I ordered the kit and got the Ancestry membership for $1 under my name. I started a tree with about 20 names starting with myself. My Dad will be taking the DNA test - he doesn't want to do anything on Ancestry - he is just doing this for me. Does he have to create a free tree, etc? Thank you!:) @@AncestryAimee
@s.p.3738 you can select a tree to use with DNA results. I have a handout coming this week that touches on it and how to use Ancestry.
I am just the same so I do understand thanks for the incurgement from South Africa
😃👍
I am terribly unorganized. Hate sourcing and citations. Bordering lol. I know, I know. Definitely need to work on that!
You aren’t alone!
I have two individuals on my mothers side, and I think they are hiding something from me because I can not get their correct information on them. It's just frustrating. So real soon, I am going back after them.
Some just want their privacy and won’t engage.
And sometimes it's a generational thing. That's true in my late parent's generation and their parents. My father was illegitimate though everyone in his family in the area seemed to know who the guy was except for my father and us kids. However doing family history I find NO examples in his direct line. My maternal grandmother made some cutting remarks in the past when my parents wanted to become £10 poms in the 50s. The irony is that it is on my mother's side that I'm finding examples. Victorian attitudes strike again.@@AncestryAimee
In general (not specifically regarding genealogy), I think men are capable of feeling tremendous amounts of guilt, and even being controlled by it. However, they set a much narrower bandwidth of who they will accept that guilt from.
I like that. I think that’s true. Thanks for sharing.
Men feel guilt, we just don't tend to admit it.
Haha! Love it! 😂
Men can definitely brush things off but I wouldn't necessarily call that a healthy thing 😂 I do just want to add as I'm beginning this video it's been in my to watch list and I'm getting started now. I just wanted to say that I have had a few moments of guilt through my research. But I would say that the most I had to come in on the day whenever I discovered that my family owned three famine ship boats during the slave trade. It took a lot to digest that information. So in writing a book about it to tell the stories and make the histories known.
That is a blow to find things like that in your family. I applaud your efforts in your book! How wonderful!
Great topic Aimee! I had totally given up on researching my immigrant family because of the difficulties in reading and also finding the documents. It was overwhelming. That is my dad's entire line that I gave up on. Talk about feeling guilty! Now that I have a 3rd cousin that lives in Germany who I'm trying to figure out the connection to, having someone who is a native speaker is certainly helping me flesh out at least my paternal grandmother's side!
Love that! Sometimes time provides a new record or person to help us with those road blocks!!
I guess I feel guilt, but it's more about finding relatives, like a father or half-siblings, and them not being interested or being hostile because I didn't find them sooner. Or because I'm not super rich and successful. Or because I don't know enough about the culture I never grew up in.
I think it’s part of our existence. We can’t do it all! Thanks for adding your thoughts.
I don’t get the guilts luckily but I do struggle with getting my head around cMs values and which distance to relatives they might apply to and the jumps to once/twice removed etc, meaning if I know I should be looking for a second cousin or perhaps in the removed category, where exactly to look in my own tree. Or if I’m looking at a dna match’s tree, where I should be looking based on cMs shared. I’ve watched a few vids but hasn’t fully sunk in!!
What secret sauce do you eat?? 😉 DNA is tough! Use the free shared cM tool at DNA painter. That helps me.
No secret sauce but live each day happy in my choices and making sure all of us are content but no one costs any other undue stress. That means I might put my own needs higher up the ladder but still think abt my family’s needs within that. Leads for a happy life for all of us!
@jennichristie5264 love it!
Hard to write that history down for the generations, easy to click a bunch of hints on ancestry. 😅 Mostly though, i feel guilty about not organizing and preserving all those papers and photos in my basement! Thanks for the great video as always!
It is so easy to click those hints! Good luck on getting to this papers and photos someday!
I struggle with focusing on just one person at a time to search in the recent past. I said no to that this year!! Focusing on one great grandparent at a time. Lol
😂 I think that is a common problem!
I do find it hard to find information , whenever I am searching South Africa it is not included and we can't get that much info Thanks A
I know little about researching there. Do you use FamilySearch? Its records and wiki could be helpful.
@@AncestryAimee I use familysearch mostly ,I have a tree there and one at Myheritage and use Ancestry as well I find them to be the best 3 to use you are more then welcome to check the Tupper family out as we are of one family around the world well at least 80 to 90% witch we are all working on
I would love to see a write up on one or two of your ancestors to show how you do it. I struggle with writing up interesting stories about each ancestor / family, that other people would like to read. Suggestions? ideas?
What I do badly? Organizing my research findings. I end up with large random unorganized piles of paper and a large unorganized down load folder on my computer. I'm like a squirrel in the middle of the road. I jumping from person to person, not getting to a good stopping point.
Can completely relate! I’ll add that suggestion to my list of videos to do!
Aimée, You're fantastically optimistic and motivating. Bravo and thank you.
Thank you so much!