Family History vs Genealogy

Over the last 10 years, I've delved into the murky waters of family history or genealogy more than a few times. When I worked at Museum London, I had numerous offers of donation that required some geneaological mapping in order to fully comprehend the provenance accompanying the objects.  Sometimes the donors supplied their own family trees, but at other times I was expected to take down names and relationships and map them out myself.  Genealogy can be quite complicated, but when inheritance comes into an object's provenance, it's incredibly useful for figuring out who had what, when, and often where.  Other times, family histories, which could be a little more vague, sufficed, especially if the family was well known in the region, or if only one or two closely related family members factored into a donation's importance.

I work with family histories and receive research requests from genealogists at my current museum, too.  In this case, because the Secrets of Radar Museum has a strong bias toward military history, it often comes as requests for assistance filling out the sketch of someone's military service records.  I don't spend much time tracking down the personal history, but provide context and explanations for the places they might have been posted.  For me, the best part about history are the people.  People make history, afterall.  Events are recorded and remembered by people.

I have colleagues and friends who are trained genealogists and they really are good at what they do.  I have, on occasion, relied on them, myself, because they usually have subscriptions to fancy pants software, or a special attention to detail that escapes me when I'm tracking five generations of men all named William.  Plenty of people do their own research, tracking down obscure branches of their family.  My first cousin, once removed (so my mother's cousin) on my maternal side, has done a lot of research into her family lineage, which is fascinating.  That half of the family is Scottish and parish records helped her trace back.  For me, my paternal side is a lot more complicated, what with waves of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe filtered through Ellis Island and Mexico.  If I were to really go into it, I would hire a professional, but for now I content myself with a general knowledge of that part of my family history. 

If you're interested in genealogy and family history, the Library and Archives of Canada have a helpful site that explores both forms of familial tracking.  Be careful, though, just sketching out a short family tree can be a massive rabbit hole from which you may never return !