Well, this newsletter article has provoked an interesting discussion.
My research started out quite one-dimensional (i.e. researching direct ancestors only) but rapidly spread to encompass families - siblings and, yes, nieces and nephews. I quickly realised that getting a fuller picture in this way not only made the research more interesting, but could often help with confirming (or otherwise) my findings on direct ancestors. I have often found that wider family (nieces, nephews, in-laws, cousins etc.) living with ancestors on censuses has been invaluable in confirming I've found the right family, especially where common surnames are involved. I also agree that other sources (e.g. wills) can provide valuable insights too. Ditto informants on death certificates, witnesses on marriage registers etc. may well be wider family. I have numerous examples of this, e.g. a marriage register for a direct ancestor had her maternal uncle as a witness, enabling me to confirm her mother's maiden name and go back a further generation.
if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't do it. I love the thrill of the chase and the only thing I'm a bit less enthusiastic about is the record keeping, so I keep that to the minimum necessary.
I totally agree with you here. I clearly have an investigative mind, harking back to my days as a forensic scientist. Good record-keeping is clearly very important (as it was in my previous career), but I find that aspect the most tedious.
Thinking about it, researching our family tree is a bit like gardening. A lot of what we do is hard work and quite boring, but we do it because the only alternative is to pay someone else to do it on our behalf.
I would never pay anyone else to research my family tree on my behalf, as for me it is the thrill of the chase that engages me more than the final results - though of course making interesting discoveries (such as finding a murderer and a Titanic survivor amongst the wider family) make the boring bits worthwhile. As Pauline said, we don't need to research our family history at all - unlike gardening, where the neighbours would probably complain if our garden wasn't kept tidy.
