If you haven’t ever traveled to do genealogy and your family history I would highly recommend it.  My husband and I have traveled quite a bit in the last 10 years. We have had a yearning deep within us to go and see the places where our ancestors lived.  We have had marvelous experiences both in and out of The United States. The trips have produced nothing less than miracles each and every time.  It is true that many of the records are now available online, but some can only be found in the localities.  But with this kind of family history travel, the benefits are so much broader than just records.

There is much more to walking where they have walked than we had ever imagined.  Once you have identified your family the fun part is making them more than just a name on a pedigree chart.  You take the records and scour them for details.  The skeleton of a pedigree chart is great, but putting the flesh on the bones of our ancestors is the best. The more we know, the more we love them and appreciate them and learn from them.

In my book, the very best way to do it is to go visit them in what was their previous home, taking in the whole picture. You study the historical, and cultural aspects of where they originated and when you go you will be ready to see what it is like today. Even with the passing of time, you will learn so much from the topography, the climate, economics and the people that live there now.  With The Family History Guide, we are so fortunate to have the Country Pages found on the Homepage Dropdown menu.  thefhguide.com   With The Family History Guide’s Country (and State) Pages you can be very prepared before you even go.   When you arrive prepared you can take it all in more fully.  The landscape, the people, the economic history of your ancestor’s day, the cemeteries where they are laid to rest will all mean more.  When you arrive at your destination, you should look for information available in their libraries, archives and historical societies that cannot be found online. You have already hopefully found what is online at home.   Preparation is key and saves you so much time, effort and money in the long run.  Although that seems intuitive, with every trip you will learn something new that you should have done before you left.

I have Welsh ancestry and spent years tracking down my great-grandfather, Thomas Reese.   I only had a name and no location except Wales, but finding one piece of information made all the difference.  I blogged about this last year here.

From the information that was gleaned from his obituary written in Welsh and about six months of prep time, we were ready to go to Wales.  See the Country Page for Wales here that is available today in the Family History Guide. It contains a lot of good information and if you click on the beautiful header photos in the Country Pages, they even take you directly to Wikipedia for your location.  So thoughtfully convenient!

From Carmarthen, we drove to Llandovery. We stopped in Llandovery to gather more information from the local residents.  We learned so much from the historical society about our specific family and got a hand-drawn map on a brochure by a kind lady, that directed to exactly where we needed to go.  My family members were miners and so I was expecting a brown, rocky, even ugly kind of destination.  Boy, was I surprised as we drove down the narrow road. It was gorgeous, in fact, stunning!  The only thing that was rocky was the cars and lorries that came head-on at us on the narrow and winding roads!   

Before going to Rhandirmwyn in Carmarthenshire where my great-grandfather was born in 1846, I learned that the houses there were all named.  The obituary gave me the name of Thomas’ house, it was called Crincae.  One of the things we have learned over time is to not be shy in talking to the locals.  Every person we spoke with helped us eventually get to the actual place where my ancestors lived for three generations. We even found the house where they lived. It is still there!  I never dreamed it would still be standing.  What a joy to have this photo!  To have been there right where my great-grandfather was born was a joy!  Through this trip we’ve have learned so much, and had added many family members and generations to our pedigree and learned to love them.

I met a living historian, Alun Jones, of Rhandrirmwym, a tiny place that consists of two churches with cemeteries, a post office, and a pub/hotel and private dwellings. That is it!  He has offered us a personal tour of the region and the mine site, now long since closed, when we return in 2019.  He asked me to submit a written history of my branch of the Rees family which I have done.  It was published in their local genealogy newsletter and archived for others that come along someday seeking answers.

My great-grandmother, Mary Davies, was born in 1846 and raised just four miles from Thomas Rees in Cilycwm.  She followed him to America five years after he emigrated, where they were wed. One of the things we wondered about is why they would leave to come to the stark lands of a prairie town in the United States.  We asked a local resident and the answer was poignant.  “Well, you cannot eat the beauty.”  When the mines closed they were hungry.

If you want to see why we asked this question here is a short (3:55 minutes) video of the beautiful Towy River that separated the hamlets of Rhanderimwyn and Cilycwm where my great grandparents were born and grew up.  These are the fun things that come from traveling with a purpose. Sightseeing is great but this is better.

If your personal circumstances prevent you from traveling, be sure to explore and take a virtual walking tour of your ancestors’ places with Google Earth.  That is fun and beneficial as well. Happy family history travels to you!