Dear Aaron,
Welcome to wikitree! I also had an interest in genealogy as a child, thanks to my mother's storytelling about her childhood and her parents childhoods, my grandfather who wrote an autobiography including family history and a great aunt who was interested in genealogy, and wrote a genealogy for one branch of my family. I am now 61, and things have changed a lot since I was young, making it much easier to find and document genealogy.
When my great aunt did genealogical research, she had to write (pen and ink) to the national archives, and to county records offices, etc. She was lucky when she got answers.
When I started researching my genealogy (past getting grandparents to tell me stories), I could go to the library, as many records had been put on microfilm, which could be ordered through libraries, and they had a microfilm viewer in their genealogy room to view them on. They also had books full of copies of ships lists you could look through, by year, name of ship, ports, etc. It took a lot of time, but a lot of information could be found eventually.
Compared to either of these, the lode of the internet data is awesome. And with Wikitree and Family Search being free, anyone who has a computer and internet access can build their family tree at a rate of speed unknown to previous generations.
According to the relationship finder, I am your 11th cousin, though Thomas Mighill. You mentioned being descended from George Seoul. I am also a descendant of his, so we are probably related in several ways. My father is descended from 3 Mayflower passengers; my mother from Swiss and German ancestry.
