History and Your Place in It

By Seth Saunders

History is important and researching history is fun! Each person has a unique story to tell and can discover more about where they come from. You can get answers to questions about yourself. Where did you get your blue eyes? Why do you love music?

By placing yourself in a historical timeline, you can discover information about your ancestors because they left clues for you just waiting to be found.

Placing Yourself into the Pages of History

Most students who have been schooled in the public school sector or have been educated at the collegiate level have learned historical “facts.” Their heads have been filled with the same old boring “Who, what, when, and where.”

It is necessary to know things about historical events and the people who shaped our world. But the real, meaningful, enjoyable story that you will uncover takes shape within the pages of your family history. You can place the otherwise random single facts within the context of what your ancestors were doing at that time, and how it may have affected them.

To make history more exciting, you need to ask yourself, “So, what? This fact exists, but how did it affect the world my ancestors lived in? How does it affect my world today?” Try thinking this way when you read history, or even when learning science, math, etc. 

You will soon find yourself connecting random facts into a meaningful whole, which makes learning more enjoyable and memorable.