Genealogy isn't all about names and dates. There is a real personal side to it, if you look past the offical records and read histories that include information about your ancestors and the lives they led. 

I highly recommend researching your family history both with Ancestry.com and on Newspaper Archive.com. I found plenty of information in both locations, and interestingly, there was little to no overlap in my search results from the two places. Ancestry.com was very helpful with research such as this. They have excellent search capabilities.