So where are you from?

[Rishile]

My ancestors are all from the South of England - I have not yet found one born north of Watford.  Which probably explains why I always feel uncomfortable when I go 'up North'.

My father's line moved around quite a lot from Kent, Essex, London, Watford and Devon.  My mother's line stayed in Devon for as far back as I have gone so far then my grandfather moved to Kent.  Strangely, both lines lived in a small village in Devon for a couple of generations.  Maybe they knew each other.

I find it incredible that my parents managed to meet each other.

Rishile

[Nettie]

My mother was born in Dublin, my dad in Kerry, they met and married in London and emigrated to Melbourne, Australia where there was no family at all. I am a Melburnian...Australian born and bred, and proudly so. Yet, when I was 21 and went to Ireland for the first time, and got to meet my grandmothers and assorted rellies for the first time, it felt like I was home. Two have two such beautiful 'homes' makes me doubly blessed.

[dowdstree]

Edinburgh born and bred although I always feel at home in Dundee as that was where my dad was from and I spent a lot of my childhood there with family.

My mother's line were all from Fife (just over the water from Edinburgh) and I love to holiday there.

My dad's line came originally from various parts of Ireland - and I feel an affinity with that country.

Oh and there is a little English too I believe on my mum's side.

I am from all those places but home is where I was brought up and my family are now -  Edinburgh.

Dorrie

[jaybelnz]

I'm a 1st generation Kiwi!  My parents came to NZ from Scotland in 1924 and 1927, with  their respective families. I grew up in a newly formed little community just out of Wellington, in the Hutt Valley, the same suburb that my Mum had lived in with her parents and sister, and also some brothers and sisters of my Grandmother, and their children,  from when they had all arrived in NZ.

MY dad lived not far away from there, with his parents and family, and a few years later he had a little cobblers shop there! When Mum and Dad eventually met and married, they moved into their first home (apart from a little flat they had rented) in the same suburb. My 2 brothers and I were born, raised and married from that same house!  The housing development had been for the workers, was Govt, State Rental Housing.  Later, when my Dad came home from WW2, he used his post war grant to put a deposit on the house, and bought it!

Most of my Mum's cousins, and my Dad's siblings did much the same, stayed in the area and built their lives and families! My brothers and I grew up with lots of family always gathering together for as long as I can remember! 

I still live only a short drive, about 20 minutes, from where my Mum and Dad, my brothers, and myself all grew up, as well as our many cousins! That little place was called Moera, and that's what I call home!

When I visited Ayrshire in Scotland, (where my grandparents had been born and bred), in 2003, 2013, and again last year, I met lots of family descendants still there!  Hearing them speak in the same broad Ayrshire dialect as my Grandparents had, showing me letters and photos which had been sent to them (or their parents) by my Grandparents, even my own wedding photo was brought out! I was made very much one of them!  Being fed lots of lovely shortbread and steak pie, felt just like home as well.

Meeting all these people, visiting the cemetery and seeing graves of more ancestors, and other family, made me feel part of that place as well, and I felt very much at home there too.  So Scotland is very deeply imbedded in me, and Scotland is home to me too!  Everything seemed so familiar to me, it was as if I had always been there,  and when I went back for a second AND a third time it was no different, it was still like going home!

Oh dear, I've done another ramble!  But that can serve as another chapter in my life story!

[jbml]

Born in Essex (top right-hand corner of the Underground map), grew up in Cambridge, lived for more that quarter of a century now in and around Bedford. My family lines are ALL from London and the South East for pretty much two centuries. Cambridgshire, Suffolk, Essex, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex (both East and West), Hampshire, Norfolk, Gloucestershire ... pretty solid Anglo-Saxon stock there. The Irish lines have to have come from Ireland at some point (obviously!) and the Martindales came from the North West originally, but I have yet to find the migrant.

As to where I'm "from" ... well, it's where I grew up, isn't it? And that's Cambridge.

[bibliotaphist]

I like to give a different answer every time I'm asked, particularly in census returns and on my children's birth certificates. Carrying on a family tradition.

[coombs]

Born in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, grew up in Rollesby, so see myself as a Rollesbyyer. Parents from Essex. I am a Londoner by heritage as my maternal line great gran was from Islington, her family from Soho, Shoreditch, France, Kent and Sussex. Rest of mums ancestors were from Durham, Scotland and Essex as far as I know. I feel like an Oxfordian as my dads maternal nan was from there, her husband was Essex. My paternal grandad has Essex and Suffolk ancestry mainly with a great gran from Oxfordshire.

[lydiaann]

I am 'from' Newark, because that's where I live now.  However, my roots are Lancashire (the Taylor/Butterworth/Whittaker families on my father's side) and Derbyshire/Northumberland/Scotland (on my mother's side).  Himself was in the RAF so I travelled around Europe and the UK for 25 years, then 20 years in Canada before coming back to being reasonably local to where I spent 15 years as a child/young adult.  Like most people, I am a regular 'mixed bag' - and feel mighty proud to be so!!

[Schoch]

Like so many here I have also felt for most of my life that there was no where to call "home".

Born in the Northeast of the UK (Tynemouth), but move frequently (almost 15 schools) so never developed lasting friendships. Ended up in Lilliput (Dorset) via Bere Regis and then back to Newcastle.
Now I live in Canada and have continued my "nomad" ways, from Ontario to Prince Edward Island.
So it's no wonder that "ancestry" has become a hobby for me.
My roots are from Germany (prior to WW1), from Scotland, Essex and Cumberland. So it seems this wondering has been in my family for a long time.
Even my DNA comes from other places (2 Jewish markers, some Scottish and a marker from North American aboriginals..can't find the actual link but it must have been since the 1600's    ).

Makes me understand the phrase " we are all related"


Richard