The Scottish records are all online and make searching for your ancestors quite easy, there is a charge for downloading copies of birth/death/wedding certificates, but it isn't much. I have a tree for both parents dating back to births in the mid 1700's.
Church records are online from before that period but I have yet to find the time to look back any further.
I was naturally curious as a child and would quiz my grandparents, aunts and uncles about their memories of their parents and grandparents, I made notes so much of that information is available for my kids and theirs. If you have older relatives, ask them now, once they've gone all those stories are gone forever.
My grandmothers younger sister, ran away to travel the world with a Japanese juggler, during the war years he changed his name and tried to pass him self off as being from Siberia, that worked for a time, however the authorities caught up with him and he eventually found hilm self teaching jujitsu to commandos in the highlands.
From SWMBO's family we have tales of a great aunt who used to smuggle silks, silver and such across international borders prior to the first world war, she would sew items into her clothing and if I remember correctly she once disguised herself as a young soldier.
Edited to add:
There are many bits of software for organising and displaying your family trees, most based on a system developed by the Church of Latter-day Saints, however in my experience most of those seem to introduce errors into your tree when the tree grows too large. There are online services but these seem to be run as mini-facebooks, more interested in gathering your social profile than building a tree. My advice would be to stick to sheets of A3 paper and a pencil, until something worthwhile comes along anyway.
Church records are online from before that period but I have yet to find the time to look back any further.
I was naturally curious as a child and would quiz my grandparents, aunts and uncles about their memories of their parents and grandparents, I made notes so much of that information is available for my kids and theirs. If you have older relatives, ask them now, once they've gone all those stories are gone forever.
My grandmothers younger sister, ran away to travel the world with a Japanese juggler, during the war years he changed his name and tried to pass him self off as being from Siberia, that worked for a time, however the authorities caught up with him and he eventually found hilm self teaching jujitsu to commandos in the highlands.
From SWMBO's family we have tales of a great aunt who used to smuggle silks, silver and such across international borders prior to the first world war, she would sew items into her clothing and if I remember correctly she once disguised herself as a young soldier.
Edited to add:
There are many bits of software for organising and displaying your family trees, most based on a system developed by the Church of Latter-day Saints, however in my experience most of those seem to introduce errors into your tree when the tree grows too large. There are online services but these seem to be run as mini-facebooks, more interested in gathering your social profile than building a tree. My advice would be to stick to sheets of A3 paper and a pencil, until something worthwhile comes along anyway.
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