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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: bubblefish84 on Saturday 08 March 08 23:29 GMT (UK)
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I just wanted to know what reasons people had to start researching their family trees?
I'm interested to find out how many reasons there can be for wanting to know about your ancestors. My own reasons are because my grandfather found out he had 4 siblings that he did not know about an so we tried to find them.
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WDYTYA are TV got me interested, I thought why not have a go at my family tree. I entered what I knew onto a tree on Genes Reunited and instantly made contact with a long lost Uncle (my Mums brother), no one had seen or heard from him for over 20 years.
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Lots of reasons.
I was always fascinated with the idea of where I came from ~ as in right back in time! I know that I'm not likely to find that out, but my interest in the origins of man & the 'Out of Africa' theories, etc, fascinate me as much as finding out about my great grandparents. DNA 'archaeology' is making this side of my quest a real possibility now. (Expensive idea though :( )
Before I started on my own geneaology I would study the pedigrees of the royal families of Europe. Again, I was fascinated.
I love history, archaeology, anthropology, etc. When I was studying History at school it would come alive for me when I realised that members of my own family had lived through it ~ especially if they were people I had known.
One day, my Mum heard a geneaologist being interviewed on the Jimmy Young show. She thought that this was something I would like, so she bought me her book ~ 'How to Trace Your Ancestors' by Meda Mander.
I was hooked. I have ancestors from England, Wales, Scotland & Greece ~ and probably elsewhere, too. I have an illegitimate line which prevented me from researching in that area for some time, because it upset my grandparents so much when I first mentioned it.
Some of the family stories are amazing ~ the true ones more so than the 'legends'!
Without those who gave birth to me, and to my ancestors, I wouldn't even be here. I want to know where my roots lie.
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Hi Bubblefish
It was a pocket watch that got me started and an old family tale that one of my ancestors was a sailor; the one time he forgot to take his 'lucky' watch to sea with him he never returned!
The it was a photo of my g grandmothers Gypsy Caravan and then the reasons behind my G Grandfather dying at a young age (WW1)
Each stone turned throws up another two questions - so I think this will be a lifetime project for me.
And the best of it is I have found family I didn't know I had and met a lot of people on Rootschat whom I like to think of as friends - so thanks Ancestors! And for helping me find out just where my roots are. :D
Su
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I had been doing the history of the village/parish where I live when a family member, who was visiting me at the time, suggested I did the family history instead.
Having been taken into the family in 1942 at less than 2 months of age and being adopted 12 months later, doing the research has given me roots even though I cannot 'prove' without DNA testing. I am fairly certain which branch my unknown father came from.
I am convinced of this from remarks made by another family member, who when being asked about the family between the wars, replied to my remark about 'not really being family', told me that I was.
Unfortunately she passed on before I could find out more, as have other members who may have known the truth.
The one thing she did do, for which I am eternally grateful, was to send me a batch of photo's and give me a lot of info about past aunts, uncles and even her maternal grandparents.
Jean
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When my father died in 1996 my mother gave me several BMD certificates, a family bible and some old photos all relating to the Kane/ Boshell/ Dowzard families in Ireland. I thought it looked interesting and decided to investigate my family history when I retired, in 2004.
However, I started looking for information about my mother's family more or less straightaway and then it just snowballed! ::)
I have since found family in America, relations of my father I had not known existed, and two second cousins who share my gt. gr.mother.
It has taken me to Edinburgh, Dublin and Co. Armagh, Birmingham, Manchester, Marple, Rushton Spencer in Staffs., and Tutbury in Derbyshire, so far!
There is still much to discover and I am amused when people ask " Have you finished your family tree?". The other question I get immediately is "How far back have you got?". That is not really the point. I did History as part of my OU degree and am fascinated to discover how where and when my ancestors lived.
Kooky
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I started 16 years ago, as I thought it was a good way to get closer to my mom. We used to argue a lot and things like that. Little did I know all I needed to do was have children, and we'd get closer. In the meantime, I got addicted and can't stop.
Kath
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Hello Bubble, and welcome to Rootschat ! I think you'll find us an addicted lot, and very kindly and helpful.
I started the family tree business when I found my great aunts obituary from Canada; it mentioned children and grand-children, and I wanted to know about them. Having located them, I started on the English ancestors ... and then visited the relatives in Canada to tell them about our common ancestry !
It still continues !
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Just after my son was born sixteen years ago,I said to my father,that because I was the youngest son with the youngest son one day I was going to start a family tree.He gave me three names of grandparents.Nearly thirteen years later I discovered the piece of paper with names on,thats how it all started.I just wish I`d asked him and my mum so much more.
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I started about a year after both my parents died, it suddenly interested me after going through the family papers and photos. I remembered that the 1901 census website was reputedly working well by then and started there. Of course it meant the frustration of beginning just after I'd lost two of my best sources of info.
I've always enjoyed history, especially social and local history, and researching my family covers both but makes it personal and so much more interesting for that. Plus, I love the sense of reaching back into the past, identifying a completely ordinary, obscure individual and making them matter again. There's the detective, puzzle-solving impulse and wondering what other info is out there somewhere.
Also, I like being part of a community where complete strangers go out of their way to be so helpful to each other - it seems to attract very nice people!
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You are, of course, referring to RootsChat, Sharon !
Has anyone welcomed you to RC ? If not, then welcome ! We try to be helpful !
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Hi Bubblefish84 (and Sharonw)
Welcome to Rootschat :D
From pre internet days I had copies of certificates, bible info and a rudimentary tree that my Wirksworth, Derbyshire born Great Grandpa had collected and then my Dad's father and brother had added to, but had never pursued. One day I happened across John Palmer's fantastic Wirksworth site and I was hooked.
I've always enjoyed history, especially social and local history, and researching my family covers both but makes it personal and so much more interesting for that. Plus, I love the sense of reaching back into the past, identifying a completely ordinary, obscure individual and making them matter again. There's the detective, puzzle-solving impulse and wondering what other info is out there somewhere.
Also, I like being part of a community where complete strangers go out of their way to be so helpful to each other - it seems to attract very nice people!
And I agree with all you said there Sharon.
Finding those traces even the most humble person left behind is so fantastic.
Jan ;)
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Hi bubblefish,
Had a teeny bit of family lore remembered from childhood and no one available to confirm so sitting in front of the computer about 4 years ago started playing.......started finding things and then concluded this is a terrific hobby!
Everyday you learn something new about something......even when not your people. Proved and DIS-proved some of that family lore and still stuck with a huge brick wall on the Irish!
Love to exercise internet and investigative skills in a useful way! Love history and the "stories"
RC is the best, most interactive, broad range and helpful site I've found!!!
So welcome and hope you find it fun, interesting, productive as well!!
lissa
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Like so many others, my interest came from papers in a box.... one was a newspaper report of my grandad's funeral, where two brothers Thomas and James were mentioned as mourners - I thought I'd find out what happened to them, since no-one in the family seemed to know anything.
Well - it just grew and grew like Topsy, because those weren't grandad's only siblings - he had brothers John, William, Harry, Edwin, George, Robert, Charles and Daniel as well ! And two sisters!
Quite at which point I became addicted I'm not sure, but - c'est l'histoire! And of course the apparently obligatory Irish brick wall - in this case one on each side!
But it's by far the most absorbing and fascinating hobby I've ever had and the people you "meet" are fantastic - here on RC particularly, and also contact with other people researching your family leads to a real extended family - as far as Australia even!
And you learn so much about all manner of things which you never would have even heard of otherwise!
You'll have a ball - we do !
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I can remember when, as a child, senior members of my family used to get together (Christmas, weddings, fenerals etc.) that eventually the conversations would get onto the subject of "....do you remember when..." or there were disputes about who had said or done whatever - then out would come the old photos and the anecdotes.
I was fascinated about the stories of people and events that had passed down the years, so when we got access to the internet one Christmas I determined my New Years' resolution would be to trace the family history.
Having pooled all the photos, documents and certificates I could muster from around the family, I had the basics from which to tackle internet sites - and the rest is, as they say, "history"!
Many of the family "legends" have been disproved, or at least corrected - it has also been interesting to find more than several grains of "truth" in some of the anecdotal memories of elderly relatives!
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Because I'm VERY nosey!!!
I became interested in history in general whilst studying the Victorians in year 6 at primary school. We had been looking at extracts for the 1881 census for our Village and found various names and addresses. We then went for a village walk to see thse houses which were still standing, whilst walking through the churchyard we discovered some of the graves of the people we'd found on the census, it kind of spiralled from there. I constantly quizzed my parents and grandparents for info and drew basic trees.
Then I found out that my maternal gran's mother died when gran was a tiny baby and she didn't know anything about that side of the family. Gran gave me a forget-me-not bracelet with various unknown names engraved on it which had been sent by 'Aunt Pattie' (aka Martha Jane - is it any wonder I couldn't find her!) from America. That made me determined to find something out for her. She was certain I'd never find anything, until Jane (aka Nutty) found my great gran living with an aunt on the 1901, from there I was able to build up a lot of info and find living relatives in the US, cousins of gran who knew of her and lived doors away during their childhood which gran knew nothing about.
Also, my paternal gran was a bit of a writer and penned a short story about her grandmother, The Voyage of Mary Ann Fisher. This gave me names and dates to work with and the story was amazing, the highs and lows of a poor fishermans daughter who was taken in by a 'rich' fish merchant who married her and took her away from her Norfolk roots up to Yorkshire only for him to be disowned and shunned by his father on marrying a 'poor' girl. Mary Ann suffered the harsh reality of living below the bread line with hungry mouths to feed. She gave up on her useless lazy husband and worked her fingers to the bone for her and her children's survival. Anyway he died, she remarried a decent man, and they all lived happily ever after.
Now, I'm not sure how true this story is but Mary Ann did leave Norfolk for Yorkshire upon marrying and I assume her life was hard and the names and dates were almost spot on. And it's great to have a bit of an insight into my great great grandmothers life.
Basically, other than being a nosey person who loves a challenge that's what got me hooked!
Legs
xxxx
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Evening All
I got interested and started my research in 1983. A friend of mine had researched his family tree and that got me started. The interest that inspired me to want to know, was a picture of my grandmother with my father and one of his brothers taked around 1920, also I felt a real pull toward my grandfather who was KIA in WW1.
Unfortunately, after a short burst, I kinda drifted away from family history. There was no internet then, it was such a chore finding out one thing at a time etc.
I recently got the bug in a much bigger way, I think having time and a computer makes a huge difference. I haven't been a member of Rootschat very long, I initially found another forum which sadly attracted about 3 or 4 posts a week, people often didn't reply or say thanks, a pretty depressing place to be. Then suddenly "enlightenment" I found Rootschatters. A brilliant bunch, it's so great not to be on your own and to share the pleasure we all get from a breakthrough. I could go on but don't want to be too boring. Thanks.
I will be posting a nice little puzzle soon that we can all enjoy "hopefull" My last one was fantastically successful.
Regards
Howard
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My Mum's cousin and my Dad's cousin had both done a lot of research and got me started. My Mum wanted to know but didn't have the patience, so she paid for my initial subscriptions to GR and ancestry and then it very quickly became an obsession! Unfortunately the only member of my family who is really interested is my Mum, but I still to talk about it too much to everybody else.....
We've discovered part of both sides of the family came from towns 20 miles apart in Yorkshire. My parents want to retire to Yorkshire because it has always felt like home....... Perhaps they somehow knew they were from there.... I don't think it will ever stop being an obsession. I'm discovering new ways of finding information every week.
Claire
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It is something I had wanted to do for years.
Even when I was a very small boy staying over at my Granma's I would be interested to see the photos she kept in the 'family suitcase', along with what few documents there were. She would tell me about her family and what it was like growing up during the war. I am probably one of the few grandchildren of this generation that wouldn't find it boring.
Anyway, when my grandmother died I inherited the family suitcase (over 3 sons and 3 older grandchildren) and with the documents at my finger tips started the tree.
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WDYTYA gave me the push to get on with looking and moving to the opposite end of the UK made it easier. My main reason though was that my parents divorced when I was very young and I never knew about my father. My mother was a foundling so there was no history there either.
I have been unable to find out anything about my mother's family so far. My father had been dead 10 years when I found out where he had been but I did find out that his family all came from Edinburgh - gave me a sense of belonging somewhere, especially as I had moved to Scotland. There is also the addiction element of it all - everything I find out just sets me off again!
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Anyway, when my grandmother died I inherited the family suitcase (over 3 sons and 3 older grandchildren) and with the documents at my finger tips started the tree.
Does everyone have a family suitcase? I spent ages looking through my Grandma's suitcase at Christmas which must be at least 80 years old.
Claire
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Claire and Windsor,
That's wonderful. What a treasure. No suitcase in my family. My mother just keeps finding things whenever I go visit -- pictures, funeral cards, documents. Last visit was, "Oh, did I tell you, I found a bible?" :o
Kath
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My Mum is similar Kath - coming home on the train clutching a bag of 100 year old documents is rather nerve racking ;D
Jan ;)
No bible though :(
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My Grandad and his three siblings were put into an orphanage in the 1920s after their father died in WW1 and their mother died shortly after of TB.
The four young borthers and sisters were eventually split up, one ran away, one was adopted, one went into service and my Grandad went into the Merchant Navy.
So, as my old Grandad would say...
It's a labour of love :-*
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My Grandmother got me started as she often talked about her family and her life in the country as a young girl. She came from a fairly well to do family and spent her Sundays playing tennis, having tea parties and piano recitals, all of which fascinated me. It was really a gentle time back then and I just had to delve further into this wonderful way of life. Of course what started as an interest soon bacame a passion and is now an obsession ;D
My Grandfather was not let off the hook either and while both have now passed away I feel that my research has kept a little of their past alive and is sooooooo interesting! I have been researching now for near 20 years and it's wonderful to tell my kids of their family past. I am back to 1680 with one side of the family and have so much more to research. It's a never ending hobby and I love it. :) :)
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My Mum is similar Kath - coming home on the train clutching a bag of 100 year old documents is rather nerve racking ;D
Jan ;)
No bible though :(
I might complain a bit that she does that, but it is very exciting to get new things every now and then. ;D
Kath
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My interest came about when I was very young an my mother told me stories of when she was a
little girl living in the Gorbals in Glasgow. I only met 1 of her brothers and her sister. Her parents
died when she was quite young, so I never knew much about my grandparents. I wanted to find
out what they were like and where they came from because I lived in Liverpool and had never been
to Scotland. I made my first genealogy journey to Scotland 2 years ago to discover more about my
mums family. I've been hooked ever since
Michelle
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If the Free websites ever come back, my story can be seen there. My gt grandmother Mary Burow had 2 surnames - she was Mary Evans on her birth certificate and Mary Stone on her wedding certitifcate, and I wanted to know why. Back in the 1980s when there was no internet, I could not do much - I had to rely on the information my aunt found when she took several trips to England, and came home with some lovely family trees. She coppied some BMD's but could not find much.
In 2000 I moved to Canada and at the same time genealogy on the internet was growing. Over the last 7 years I have been able to follow my ancestors back much further than the little family tree I was originally given. I still have one solid brick wall that is refuses to be shattered - and the day I shatter that wall - will truely be the the BEST day of my life.
BD
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A cousin asked me to help her with family history - dragged me to stick my toe in the water - once I'd done that, I was hooked! Sadly we are no longer working together, but I beaver on like the sad obsessive that I am!
MarieC
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We had a suitcase too, plus "the black bag" which was full of treasures - old photographs, my grandmother's clocking in card from the WW1 munitions factory etc. I loved it and always knew that one day I would get to grips with my family history.
My parents started researching their trees many years ago, in the days before the internet, when they would wait for weeks for an answer to a query and all letters were hand written. They managed to travel to the Essex Records Office where they found a fair amount of information, some of which has turned out to be incorrect but which still gave them quite a bit to work on. They did the same in Nairn so began both the main lines on my father's side. My mother knew nothing except for what she had from the black bag and her own memory.
After my father died, my mother gave up researching and it was only after my own children had grown up and we joined the internet generation that I took up where they left off. I have done pretty much all that is possible online, though more and more stuff keeps being made available, which is wonderful. I can't manage to get to many of the records offices throughout the UK which hold details of very spread out ancestry but with the help of this site, Scotland's People, Talking Scots, Genes Reunited and the Upper Dales FHS and others, I have made huge progress. One of the most amazing things is that I have discovered that in spite of the fact that I always believed that I was half Scottish and half Yorkshire ( what a wonderful combination) it turns out that I also come from Surrey, Essex, Hampshire, Staffordshire, Durham and best of all Westmorland, which is where I chose to make my home, long before all this started.
I became so hooked on the whole thing that I insisted on doing my partner's family too. At the moment, I have five or six different families on the go!
Today I have an unexpected day at home because of the severe road conditions in the North West of England. The choices are - housework or genealogy, long dead grannies or the ironing? Now which do I choose?
Jen
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I started researching my husbands side of the family as he was told his paternal grandmother Rosina was a gypsy and I thought it would be interesting to find out.
It has proved to be totally unfounded but I have managed to follow her side back two hundred years. This was mainly because they stayed in the same area and were all farm workers. My mother in laws father was a church warden and maybe thought himself above farm workers and that is how the gypsy myth came about.
After my initial success I googled my family name and came up with a forum that had a post on it from what turned out to be my first cousin in France to a second cousin in US. Luckily there e-mail addresses were there so I am now in touch with them both and we are all researching together.
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I have my grandmother's case too ~ full of family photos.
My mum's cousin had a box full of family photos and documents. Sadly she died, but her husband said that as soon as he felt up to it, he would go through her things and pass the family items on to me. Then he too became seriously ill and the woman who came in to take care of him threw all the family photos and papers away!!!
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Hi Tricia
That is so sad :'(
I recently had contact with a relative of the husband of my Grandpa's sister (until recently we didn't even know he had a sister!). This contact said her gran kept in close touch with my great aunt and would have had pictures of her but unfortunately when her gran died her uncle burned all her photos :'( >:(
Jan ;)
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;D
Wow i wasn't expecting such a great response from everyone on my first go.
Thanks for welcoming me! I love this site
It is good to know that many other people have been intriged by information that has been hidden from them from older/past family members.
It seems that a lot of you guys like me have become addicted to finding out more. I just can't seem to stop now!
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Hope to see you around the boards bubblefish.
You are right it is an addiction rather than a hobby ;D
Happy hunting
Jan ;)
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Jan, you are wrong. I can quit any time I want. I just don't want to. ::) :P
Kath
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Addiction AND hobby!
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Jan, I sympathise about the lost records. It happens too often!
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Hi Bubble
Great first Topic to post!
I think it is an addictive hobby - the problem is for every one question you answer you find another four!
See you on the threads
Su
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Su,
very well put. :P
Kath
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My father always insisted that he was Irish. He and his brothers and sisters all had typical Irish names (he said). Dad loved everything Irish, especially the music so about twenty years ago I decided to try and find out if he was really Irish. I first traced his father's line, no Irish, then his mother's side, again no Irish connections. Having gone back as far as 1700 in a direct line and finding no Irish connection I hesitantly told him the bad news, he was not of Irish descent. He was adamant that he was, I was eqally adamant that he was not.
Then, a few years ago, I was contacted by a person researching my father's family name. Turned out that the contact was a second or third cousin but not living in our area. I told him about my father's fantasy about being Irish, and the contact said that my father was correct. I pointed out that I had records to back up my statements. My long lost cousin then informed me that one of our ancestors had lied about his place of birth, (1800's) he was born in Ireland. With this new information I searched again. It was true, we were of Irish stock, no idea whereabouts as the record just say "Place of birth Ireland".
Sadly my father had passed away before I could tell him he was correct.
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Maeve,
He knew. :) We Irish have it in our bones. ;D
Kath
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I started getting interested when my grandmother was told that her father was Russian. I had been interested in the Soviet Union, (studied and failed a Degree in Russian and Soviet Studies because of it) and the link was too good to ignore.
I wanted to show the links back to "the Old Country" to my grandmother, but the more I researched her family, the less truth there was in the rumour. T
Turns out she was called 'Russian Red' by her mother not so much because of her heritage, but because of her hair colour!
And once I'd done one side, it seemed only fair to do the rest!
Glen
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Kath, just reading your surname interests. One of them is Gillen. This was the name of my "What a surprise" Irish ancestor. If you wish to follow up this lead please send me a pm Regards Maeve
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He knew. :) We Irish have it in our bones. ;D
Probably most of us. I'm an exception, Kath! Have unearthed a LOT of Irish, but have always felt strongly Scottish by descent (I also have a lot of that, and quite a bit of English which I also don't relate strongly to). On the other hand, I have a little bit of French way back, which I relate really strongly to! Funny things, genes! :P
MarieC
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Interesting question.
I have a few reasons.
Here they are in no particular order of importance:
My Mums parents died when they were fairly young, one before I was born and one when I was only about 6 years old, due to house fires there are no photos or family papers and before I started my research the only small bit of info I knew was that my granddad was of German descent. On the paternal side I have a stepdad and I know a little bit about his family but I am not in contact with my "bio father" and knew nothing about his family. So who I was and where I "came from" was always just a black hole for me and I didn't like that, I almost had a physical yearning to fill in that big black void.
Along a similar train of thought, since I was very young I have had a yearning for Ireland, like an instinctive feeling of belonging and a deep desire to go there one day, I have been almost positive for a number of years now that the only explanation for this was that I must have some Irish in me. Therefore it has been no great surprise for me to find that almost half of my known ancestry is Irish.
I am a Historian, both in my job and by personal interest and I have been into in History since I was a little girl and my granddad used to take me to his historical Society meetings. History is something that has always fascinated me, so finding my own history is just an extension of something I already loved.
- Belinda.
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Anyway, when my grandmother died I inherited the family suitcase (over 3 sons and 3 older grandchildren) and with the documents at my finger tips started the tree.
Does everyone have a family suitcase? I spent ages looking through my Grandma's suitcase at Christmas which must be at least 80 years old.
Claire
No suitcase in my family unfortunately.
With one exception there are no photos before 1970 due to the previously mentioned fires, and not even alot from 1970 - 1985 due to the family being fairly poor and not having cameras.
I have no idea what my Mum (or any of her siblings) looked like as children. My only pictures of my grandad who died in the early 80's are a wedding photo which miraculously survived and the fading image of him as an old man that I have in my head. As for my Nanna, his wife, she died before I was born and the wedding pic is the only one I have ever seen of her.
It makes me very sad.
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It is so sad not to have any photo's of family past and present. I was in that position until two weeks ago.
I took a year to decide to write to the person who registered my fathers death (having had no contact with his family since I was about 2 - many years ago :(
This lovely person had collected and stored for ten years a whole collection of photographs that she sent me. I now have family photos going back to my great great grandmother, so exciting.
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About a month ago and through a contact of a contact, via Genes Reunited, I received a photograph of my partner's maternal great grandparents. He had never seen any pictures of them and this weekend we will show them to his mother, who certainly never knew her grandfather and I'm not sure she met her grandmother either. It feels very odd that I should be the one who received the photograph as it isn't my family, but my partner was absolutely delighted and we're hoping his mum will be too.
And I most definitely know where both mother and son took most of their genes from - the likeness to grandmother/ great grandmother is astonishing.
Jen
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Hi Colliehouse
Welcome to Rootschat :D
What an amazing story - you must be so pleased.
Jan ;)
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I second that, Jan!
Welcome to Rootschat, colliehouse, and I'm delighted that you have had such a windfall from your contact!
MarieC