Now that I’m a professional genealogist with hundreds of hours of educational courses and study under my belt along with triple that in research time, I look back at my early genealogy work as a hobbyist and cringe a little. Unfortunately, some of my errors are requiring untangling years later, when in an ideal world, most of my personal family research would be quite far along given the time I’ve spent on it. To help you learn from my mistakes, here are seven lessons I wish I knew before I took on genealogy as a hobby.

Probably unsurprisingly, there’s overlap between photography and genealogy. My interest in different photographic methods means I can identify different types of film and photos and use them to date photos (my interest in historical fashion is also helpful here). I’m also the person at family gatherings who is most likely to be taking photos and pulling out old family albums to talk about who’s who. Even as a kid, I loved getting out old photos and asking questions about people I didn’t know or moments I wasn’t around for. In many ways, photography and genealogy have always been intertwined for me.