I've run into that kind of stuff with my research also. However, most of the trouble comes from lack of knowing who is related to whom. If you enjoy digging up bones, keep doing it and when they don't show interest, do it just to show them that you can find what you want without their support. Then, when it eventually happens, you will find a famous person or some really big event in history that you can show being related to. Now they will start to show interest. Then if you are related to one famous person, what about another? As far as the help within the family for info, I ran into that as well. The grandparents were dead except for one, and he was on his last brain cell, could not or maybe would not give up info. So, it all came down to local records and a lot of digging around at the historical society, courts, and yes cemeteries. All have records and most, not all, are public record. A lot of names and info can be found by knowing what record has the missing pieces. When you finally get a whole bunch of info and even put out a huge tree or maybe even a booklet, interest may peak for a brief moment, and then disappear, but somewhere sometime, there will be someone who sparks up an interest to continue the search and even participate.