How many have relatives who actually care?

[short_rach]

I'm researching both my tree and that of my DH.

He gets just as excited as I do with new finds etc and he's my chief gravestone finder! Honestly this man can scan a graveyard and spot all possible stones far quicker than I can!

My Mum's still very interested with every little snippet I find out about 'her lot', my dad however couldn't care less. Not bad for a man who professes to know nowt about his roots and clearly doesn't want to either 

MIL is fascinated with the things I'm discovering. Then again she has a habit of 'remembering' snippets of info AFTER I've worked things out for myself lol

[loo]

You guys are inspiring me to go to Ireland and try to find some people!  I have been concentrating on England, but I have Irish ancestors as well, who left there in about the 1830s or so.  SWANICK.  Do you suppose they'd be interested in seeing me?  The name is an extremely uncommon one in Ireland, to judge by Griffith's evaluations (I think there were only about 7 or so of them at that time, and all living fairly close together, in Co. Mayo area), so I assume that if I found anyone by that name in Ireland now,  they would be related, but I have found it rather daunting to figure out how to trace them exactly.  Any thoughts?

[pete edwards]

Hi Loo

YES GO ,  you will love it,

Pete

[loo]

Thanks for the encouragement, Pete. 

I just looked up the current phone book for Ireland online, and there still aren't very many of them listed (12 phone listings), AND 11 of them are still in the same area!!!  I figure that since we are talking about so few households, they must all be related to me somehow, but lord knows how!  Do you think that these people would have some sort of family memory that some of them left for Canada and the US back in the 1830s to 1850s? (I haven't yet figured out when they came exactly, although I think I can narrow that down by checking to see when the area that they migrated to was settled.  I feel reasonably confident that it was the 1830s.) 
Probably I should try this on a different thread sometime, to track down the genealogical connections.

[freeway]

hi, i have just found a lot of my family in australia and cannot wait for next year when i can go and meet them, don,t care if family don,t approve, i,m excited about it

[Zeb]

I think I've been quite lucky with my hunting for the family past as we're all so close that there would often be the young bunch chatting with the oldies about the past. Quite a few stories have been passed through time and from this I was able to build up quite a picture before I started.

Because a lot of it was all stories passed down the line some parts have become distorted so its given me immense pleasure to be able to fix some of the stories and put them right like where certain family members were years ago and why they were there.

I was inspired to start searching as a school friend I'm still in contact with told me he was researching his tree. Since then I got hooked. We had a story of my grandfather losing 7 of his siblings after he arrived home from Flanders during WWI. To this day we have no idea if they survived the war as apparently Birmingham was bombed quite badly. Part of my quest was to try and find any living rellies, to finish his hunting for him (even if I am almost a century late) but seem to have gone the other direction instead to around 1750.

hahaha I got sidetracked

Yeah, as a result of me digging out information and goodies from the past I've found I've been phoning a couple relatives I haven't spoken to for about 20 years because they're the last remaining of the Harris bloodline (as far as we know) from London but almost everyone is interested in receiving updates from me now and then.

It fascinates me how I've traced various parts of the tree to absolutely massive families consisting often 2 or 3 brothers/sisters living in the same road each having about 9 children and now I'm finding it difficult (if not impossible) to locate or even think of family members still alive.

If it hadn't been for my mum I wouldn't know the Harris' around London so I plan to visit them.

[loo]

I'm somewhat shocked that there is no trace of so many of your great-aunts/uncles.  Do you think that they simply were killed in the bombing, and nobody reported them missing at the time?  Anyone else hear of anything like this?

[kena]

Hi, most of my family are loving what I find out especially my mum (assistant to me when searching at recordoffices and graveyards), my dad (second assistant at graveyards) also my living grandparents and my mum's brother and sister and also my greataunt in Australia who I met for the first time last September have all shown interest in what I am doing in the past. The only one who isn't so crazed is my sister (even though she does a great job scanning all my photos for me that I send on to my contacts), she didn't even act that impressed when I told her about the link that I had found to William the conqueror  , Maybe one day...!

Anna

[seven]

Hi Loo and all,
Its pretty horrifying to be shown death on that scale during the war isn't it?
I grew up in Australia after 2nd world war and haven't known that destruction of the family.
Been reading Anne Perry books on 1st ww and terrible losses  of young Europeans on both sides in the trenches. Makes family search seem even more relevant.

I'd love to find my kerrisk family back in Ireland and go and visit them. Sounds magic to me.
seven