Genealogy Research Projects
Genealogy is the study or account of a family's ancestry and lineage. While you probably know your immediate family, researching your ancestry may result in finding relatives you didn't know about, learning about significant events in your family's past or learning a more clear account of where your family came from and how they came to be where they are today. Research projects can be done on your or other people'sfamily lineage, such as a famous person's history or a group of animals' biological genealogy.
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Family Trees
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Making a family tree is a popular way to map out your family's ancestry. Using a treelike diagram, you can plot all your known relatives as the branches with yourself as the trunk. Your family tree can either be made to include as much of your family as you'd like. In order to produce your family tree, you will have to research your lineage. This can be somewhat difficult if historical records are lost or if the family's older generations have passed away. The best way to find information about who your long-lost relatives are is to ask elders in your family. Grandparents may know their grandparents' names better than your parents would know their great-grandparents' names. If records have been lost, you can use public birth, marriage and death records to trace your ancestry back many generations. Family trees can be passed down to future generations as an important record of your family members.
Famous Relatives
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Every family has notable characters in it. You can do a genealogy research project to look for famous people to whom you're related. You might have to look far back into your family history to find these people. A person's name may not be a dead giveaway for being famous like the name George Washington or Anne Frank would be. Your relative could be famous for being one of the first immigrants from Europe to the Americas or someone who started a now-famous company. Living family members may know of some famous relatives of yours, or you might have to do the research to come up with their names by consulting public records, such as newspapers, birth and death records and historical documents. Once you find a famous relative, research what their life was like. If you're lucky, your famous relative may still be alive. This would make it easier to find out information about them.
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Royalty
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Family lineage is very important in royalty. In some countries, ancestry determines who becomes the new ruler when a king or queen dies. Many countries have gotten away from having ruling parliaments but can still trace their history back through a royal family. You can pick a king or queen and research their family lineage. This can be done by consulting history books or the Internet. Notable kings and queens that would be interesting to research include Cleopatra, King Tutankhamun, Alfred the Great, King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth II. Once you pick a king or queen you'd like to know more about, check history books for the names of their parents. With that information, you can look up their parent's parent's and so forth. You should try to find out the names and history of at least five generations to get an idea of what a certain royal family's lineage is.
Animal Genealogy
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You can also choose a favorite animal and research its genealogy. Information about many animal's genealogy can be found in science textbooks, scientific journals and data gathered from scientific studies. Relationships among animals is determined by scientists by looking at the patterns in genetic coding, habits and similar characteristics of different animals. When looking at the history of your favorite animal, you may find that its relatives are now extinct or that its characteristics that have evolved over time. A famous genealogical research study was done by Charles Darwin on finches on the Galapagos Islands, in which Darwin concluded that certain finches were descendants of other finches that were slightly different than them. Similar information may be found when researching your favorite animal's genealogy.
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