In Manassas, Va., Ricky Drummond, front left, interviewed family members about his ancestry. From left are his brother Cooper; father, Dorsey III; and grandparents Joy and Dorsey Jr. Genealogy helps kids view history in a different way.

Ricky Drummond’s ancestors owned a castle in the highlands of Scotland with a garden surrounding it. One of his great (times 10!) grandfathers came to the New World in 1637 and became one of the first colonial governors of what is now North Carolina.

Ricky learned this by digging a little into his family’s history.

Ricky, who is 14, began working on a family history project last year for a school assignment. He was interested in the family stories his grandmother had told him. What’s more, she even had a book of mementos that confirmed most of them.

“She actually kept a book of documents,” Ricky said. “That helped a lot.”

For Ricky, learning about his ancestors helped him view history in a new way. He felt more connected to events. “I found it pretty interesting.” Of the governor in his family tree, Ricky said: “It wasn’t just a normal person who came over.”

The more Ricky learned of his family’s past, the more he wanted to record what he knew for future generations to use and enjoy. His grandmother and his father had written down many of their stories already. Ricky took on the task of writing the rest.

Most of Ricky’s information about his family’s history came from his grandmother.

Genealogists say that interviewing your relatives is a great way to get started. The more precise the details you can get from them now, the better. Memories can fade with time, after all, and it’s easy for important details to simply slip away.

“The information (relatives) can provide doesn’t always live on after they die,” said Tish Como, a librarian at a genealogy research center at the Bull Run Regional Library in Manassas.

Local libraries are a good place to visit once you’ve finished asking your relatives for all the stories and facts they can remember.

Some librarians are trained to sift through government census records; property deeds; and birth, marriage and death certificates. They can help even if you have only minimal information, such as the names of your grandparents and their birth dates.

To keep your material organized, consider making a family tree.

While much information is on the Internet, not all records are available and some of it costs money.

After working on his family history project, Ricky realized how valuable it is.

“I personally am lucky that my grandma is still alive, because she has the giant history book,” he said. Someday, after he’s added to it, he expects to pass it along to the next generation. “I think that is going to keep going down the family tree,” he said.