History Geeks Get It

In some form or another, all three of my children are history geeks.  Whether this is passed down through the genes (I LOVE history), or it is just created through my own passion for it, it is there in varying degrees.

For those of you that don't know, for much of my children's lives, I have homeschooled them.  Sometimes, history is the biggest chunk of our studies, because we love it so much.  I have to purposely do our science or math, but history always naturally happens.

I think this is just part of what makes me love genealogy.  And it seems that my 16 year old is not far behind me on that.  He has always been fascinated with the fact that his name (Joseph) goes back multiple generations on both sides of the family.  Whenever I find a new relative who carries that name, he is online trying to find out everything he can about him.

Recently I did a barter agreement with an online friend, offering to help her with her family tree, in exchange for a gift card to buy a fairly expensive pair of shoes that don't hurt my feet.  Before I was an hour or two into it, my son was helping me find more sources online, including photos of the headstones of her ancestors.  You could see the light in his eyes, and he found one resource after another.

And his face was beaming this morning, when he informed me that he had contacted our local historical society in our little town, to offer a donation of the bottle from the 1880's that he found on one of his adventures.  He is a bit of a "mountain man", in that he goes out in the woods for hours on end, exploring.  He finds some pretty cool stuff.  No wonder he wants to be a history teacher when he is done high school.  Although I doubt he would fit into a traditional school, with his eclectic style.  

So my history geeks, those great kids of mine, get it when I spend hours researching and reading.  They almost always share in my excitement of a new find.  And that is worth more than anything to a mom's heart, to have that with your children.