A large Victorian family bible at my grandparents house, with sections at the front for recording births, marriages and deaths. I kind of grew up with it, so probably knew far more about my ancestors (on my maternal side) than would be normal at that age.

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And of course we would ask questions about these long gone folks, and be told family stories / mysteries - like a sea captain who went down with his ship (ooh I do love a good mystery - turns out he hit a harbour wall leaving Marseille and refused to leave his ship for fear of salvage).

So I kind of had a head start, and joined wonderful family history societies in the mid 90’s (Somerset, Glamorgan, Cornwall). Those were the days, Rootsweb mailing lists etc.