Learning about ancestors really makes your family's story come alive. The first step is learning their names.  Sometimes names were misspelled.  Sometimes names were changed.  Sometimes people would only go by a nickname.  Once you know names you can start to look for dates like birth dates, marriage dates, death dates and dates of other important events.  Then you can look for places lived.
There are several sites where you can pay to research your family history, but there are also ways to research without cost.  Family Search is one place that you can search for your family members without cost.  My late husband didn't have a whole of family information when he died, but I put in the information that he had and have found two or three generations back on some of his family lines because other people have been researched his lines.
Using the information you find you can create family history charts.
The more you learn about your family they more you learn about yourself.  Take time to do a little research on your family tree and learn a lot more about your family's story.