Then there is the wonderful excuse for going to visit the villages and towns inhabited by your very own ancestors, tracking down the actual house or site and photographing everything in sight. You then bung the whole lot on the computer for posterity. If you are unable to get your ecstatic relatives to buy copies of your masterpiece, get your own back by giving them copies at Christmas. These examples are a small sample of parallel interests accompanying an interest in genealogy to absorb your mind and enrich your life. Be warned, whatever you may dream up, some ancestor got there before you, and did it.
Genealogy is about working back from known facts.
Verify family hearsay if possible, but don't bank on it until you can prove it. Allowing just three generations per century, you could clock up at least 262,144 ancestors back to the beginning of the l5th.century. Back two more generations it rises to a staggering 1,048,576, and that is just my ancestors. Civil Registration started in 1837, with the reign of Queen Victoria. A birth certificate should name the child's parents, give father's name and occupation as well as mother's maiden name plus address.