I've been hearing family history stories since I was little: stories about the Reconstruction South or about an older, agrarian Lexington. Then it was my turn when family papers, charts, photos and bibles came up the road to my care. Thanks to the availabilty of the internet and a first-rate local library, my interest rapidly got away from ancestral genealogy and has focused on the descendents of Virginians who pioneered early Fayette County and established farms there. When you take long-lived ancestors who had large families you get a rapidly branching tree. It's addictive.
Now I've sidelined a bit with Find-a-Grave. I am focusing on whole lot plans in the cemeteries I am working on and tryng to figure out not just who is located in a given lot but what they had in common. Some will have no headstone or a time-eroded one but be listed in cemetery records - a marvelous jigsaw puzzle.