Yep, have been doing it for nearly 50 years. One does learn a lot of history - it's absolutely amazing how our early settlers got around so much in nothing more than covered wagons. If you're lucky enough to find diaries, they are usually full of local histories, many of which have been lost to mainstream historians. It's like quilting, in that it's so easy to sit up all night long working on it, and before you know it, the sun is coming up on a new day. Oh, well...
Someone asked about the DNA program. I have done it (or rather male relatives have done it) on several of my families, and it is very rewarding to be able to connect your ancestor to a family, especially when you can't find any extant records. Records can sometimes be confusing, but DNA doesn't lie.
One side benefit is that you meet lots of cousins, both online and in libraries (they're probably looking for the same volumes you are), and they are all so nice. I have "cousins" all over the US, Nova Scotia (yep, my branch were the rebels; the loyalists fled to Canada), in England, Scotland, and Germany, and I've yet to meet a dud. Many of us have become good friends. Every day there are more records available online, which makes doing research much easier, but there's nothing more interesting than to visit places they lived, sit in their churches, visit their graves, and put your hands on actual records that they themselves signed.
Last edited by Alondra; 05-21-2013 at 04:28 PM.