Stamp Collecting And Other Hobbies

I split my leisure time between stamp collecting and family history research (genealogy). I originally started with stamp collecting and definitely have more time invested in it. I had always been kind of interested in my family history, but didn't know how to go about researching it. It all started when I saw those commercials for ancestry.com, that I am sure everyone has seen. Family history research involves a lot of data entry, and it can get kind of tedious sometimes. I go back and forth between my stamping activities and genealogy research, sometimes even in the same day. What other hobbies do you all enjoy other than stamp collecting and how do you split your time between them?

Tropical fish. Stamps much bigger percent, as there is a limit to how involved you can get with fish

I pretty much have all my eggs in one basket with stamps..i used to love to read history...but books have taken a far back seat to stamps..would rather spend the time and money on them !!

welcome to the forum, km41566! I also do both stamp collecting (since around 1952) and I have been doing genealogy since the late 50's early 60's. My wife is also heavy into genealogy. I do subscribe to the ancestry.com site. I combine the stamp collecting and genealogy sincde I love covers. When I get an interesting cover, I like to do genealogy research on the addressee and addresser. This has resulted several times in interesting finds. You can read about one of those finds in this foruim at https://goscf.com/t/17612

Welcome to the forum km41566

My other hobbies are old postcards, preferably pre 1950, but not carved in stone. My other hobbies incude beer steins, beer mats and old movies.

My wife is into geneology too and she is finding it quite interesting. She also had tropical fish and shortly after we were married she found aout about fish on stamps. That plus dog species on stamps since we also have a registered kennel.

Chimo

Bujutsu

Golf, but I still can't figure out which hobby is more expensive......

Reading. Stamps is the much more expensive hobby. As for time, since I got my e-reader, probably an even split these days.

I think golf could easily become the more expensive...i don't average a week on stamps what a round of golf would cost...but who gets better playing once a week ?????

ncbuckeye- Interesting research into the cover you discussed above! I am looking for some way to combine both hobbies. It would be really neat if I could find a cover to or from one of my ancestors! I do own one cover that came with an old Christmas card from my great grandfather to my great grandmother before they were married. I will have to show it later since it is saved to my other computer and I am away from home right now. What areas of the country are you and your wife researching? On my dad's side, I am researching in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. On my mom's side, I am researching in St. Louis, MO, Illinois, Germany and Italy.

I'll have to admit, stamp collecting has taken somewhat of a backseat since I got involved in genealogy. It sometimes appears that it costs less to work on my family history than play with my stamps, but with the subscriptions I have to 3 genealogy websites, genealogy is probably the more expensive one right now. I have, however, been buying new stockbooks to house my worldwide collection, and recently bought a large mixture off e-bay, so the amount I have spent on stamps this year is getting up there too!

Other than stamps I enjoy woodworking. Woodworking with hand tools. I've built a large desk out of curly maple where I work on my stamps. I wanted to make it deep enough that I could store my albums and "stamp cabinet" (you know, for all those supplies) on it while still having enough room for sorting/mounting stamps. I've given up using power tools and get real pleasure using hand saws, planes, chisels, and the like. It seems the older I get (now 52) the more I am regressing back to the old ways. And I find it much more satisfying.

Apart from stamps, banknotes and any item relating to Biafra my other main interests are reading and family history - when I started tracking the family all different kinds of things popped up - so far I have found Aboriginal, Chinese, Irish and Peurto Rican ancestor and that is just on my mothers side - my fathers side is proving a little bit more difficulty but have found an irish rebel who was convicted and transported to Australia in the 1800's

This is a great topic...i wish my father knew more or could have told me more about his side of the family...i knew my Grandparents from both sides ...my wife never knew any of her Grandparents they had passed before she was born...Back in the 1970's one of my wifes brothers came over from Holland to visit his daughter in British Columbia..they were smart and travelled by train and he was allowed a couple of two days stops going cross country..remember this was before all the geneology was available on the internet...so he made his stop in Salt Lake City and did quite a bit of searching his family there...they can trace the family in Holland back to the 1600's..i have seen the tree..it gets pretty complicated because so many people had the same name like Jan Van der Veer...takes alot of detective work !

For me it's genealogy second (formerly first) followed by birdwatching and travel in general.
Combined all 4 on our trip to Chicago in November:
1. Chicagopex
2. Family research at the Newberry Library in Chicago, also visited a few old family residences, and one cemetery.
3. Viewed Tundra swans migrating south on the Mississippi River between Red Wing MN and LaCrosse, WI.
4. All travel west and north of Rockford, IL was done off the interstate, on little blacktop roads.

Stamps,
reading,
European Movies (subtitles)
Spaghetti Westerns
Cycling (150 Km a week) to both reduce the middle age tyre
and in preparation for 600 Km tour next year.
Sleeping

Aside from stamps,

I collect WW2 British Army cap badges
adding to my heavy metal cd collection
Playing poker
Inventing cocktails