52 Ancestors 2026 Week 34 - Long-lasting

A Hobby That Has Lasted a Lifetime: My 22-Year Genealogy Journey

Every now and then, I find myself drifting slightly off track, something I am sure will ring true with my fellow genealogist, wondering how you got to the 2nd cousin of the wife of 3rd cousin once removed! Like this blog slightly off track but I think that’s perfectly natural. Genealogy isn’t just about the people we discover; it’s also about the journey we take to find them. And mine has been a long one. In fact, this hobby has been part of my life for over twenty‑two years.

I first began my family tree during the very first series of Who Do You Think You Are? back in 2004. It’s funny to think about it now, but at that time the online world of genealogy was barely in its infancy. Very little was available on the internet. You had Ancestry, of course, but it was a far cry from the vast database it is today. I was fortunate that my ancestors came mainly from Kent and Sussex, because that meant I had access to CityArk for Kent parish registers and the SFHG CDs for Sussex — treasured discs that felt like gold dust when they arrived in the post.

There was also the old faithful FreeBMD and FreeREG, both powered entirely by volunteers. For a time, I became one of those volunteers myself, transcribing images from CityArk so others could benefit from the records I was lucky enough to access. It felt good to give something back, knowing that my work would help future researchers find their own family stories.

Looking back, it’s astonishing how much has changed since those early days. The landscape of genealogy is almost unrecognisable now. What once required a trip to a county archive — or hours squinting at microfilm — can now be searched from the comfort of a sofa. New records appear online almost daily. Parish registers, newspapers, wills, electoral rolls, maps, school records, tithe surveys, DNA matches — all indexed, all searchable, all connected.

And yet, despite all the technological leaps, the heart of the hobby remains exactly the same.

It’s still the thrill of the chase. It’s still the puzzle-solving. It’s still the quiet joy of finding a name you’ve hunted for years. It’s still the feeling of connection — to place, to history, to people who lived long before us.

I’ve lived through the entire evolution of modern genealogy, from CD‑ROMs and basic databases to global DNA networks and AI‑indexed parish registers. It’s been extraordinary to watch the world of family history grow, expand, and transform — and to know that my own research has grown alongside it.

This hobby has lasted because it’s more than a pastime. It’s a way of understanding where we come from. It’s a way of honouring those who came before. And for me, it’s been a constant thread running through more than two decades of life — a journey that continues to surprise, challenge, and inspire me every single day.