What family info did you have before you started genealogy?

[Josephine]

So many wonderful stories; I've enjoyed reading each one!

I've been spending a lot of time researching my maternal grandmother's paternal line (Oliver in Scotland), so I'll talk about that one.

Before I was bitten by the genealogy bug, it had bitten one of my mother's sisters. This was pre-internet, when everything was done by mail, relying on occasional visits to the LDS centres.

Fortunately, my aunt was able to learn a lot from her mother (my grandmother), who had kept some of her parents' documentation. This meant that my aunt had correct information for her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. She also had information on her mother's siblings and some of her grandparents' siblings.

When I decided to start looking into this line, my aunt kindly shared her research with me, and I started to build on it. At first, I was doing it in tandem with a cousin, but eventually I was working on my own. I've managed to get back to the 1700s and even the late 1600s in some cases.

I've learned a lot and hope to put it all together in book format. It's going to be a huge job but I want to be able to pass it on to younger members of the family who might one day use my research as a starting point. As others have pointed out, the research is never really finished, and that's the beauty and frustration of this hobby.

Regards,
Josephine

[Deirdre784]

When I started this fascinating hobby about 5 years ago, I thought I was from a small family from Cardiff (though I did know I was born in Essex when dad was working there ). Mum had one sister, married with 2 children, dad had one brother, also married with 2 children. Mum and her sister had one cousin. My grandparents had all died more than 40 years previously, and my dad was no longer alive either. Mum was in her 80s and a great help. 

I have now discovered a large extended family tree including nearly 100 2nd cousins, ancestors from Pembrokeshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Essex (2 miles from where I was born!), Somerset and Ireland. And distant cousins in Australia, America and Canada. 

[leka]

A book that was given to me after my Parents died called 'Book of Christ' had names and birth dates going from1818 to 1895, it was for a family called Solomon of which I knew nothing about but turned out to be my Grandmother's maiden name. It was this that got me hooked.
Leka

[clairec666]

Josephine, what you said about pre-internet days reminded me of my thoughts when I first dug through my grandad's research. (My own research started online.) He exchanged letters about genealogy with his cousin Charlie, and kept Charlie's replies. It looks like they'd spent ages puzzling over a "Woodward family" who kept appearing in photos, and couldn't work out how they were related to their own family.

I'll never have the chance to tell my grandad - I've solved your mystery, your grandmother's mother was a Woodward. Thanks to the internet, it didn't take me long to make the connection.

[Josephine]

clairec666, I can totally relate.

[groom]

It's rather sad really isn't it, along with "If only I'd asked while they were alive" goes " I wish they were still here so that I could tell them."

My mother often spoke about her grandmother, Julia Maria Hayward nee Groom, who apparently lived with them when Mum was a child. She had her own stove in their back room and Mum and her twin sister often used to creep in there and get an extra meal. Mum knew nothing about Julia's background. I would have loved to have been able to tell her that I discovered she was born in London, but moved back to Suffolk, where her father's family came from when she was a few months old, and was baptised there a couple of months after her father died. Mum had no idea that she had Suffolk connections.

[Tarnwater]

My father died in 2006, and he knew a few stories of his side of the family which he would repeat to my brother and me  as we grew up. He even wrote down some of his memories before he died, which I have tried to back up with the facts. The grandfather who had a smallholding, and a few cows that supplied milk for the village, his cousin Arthur who was accidentaly killed aged 10, when a charabang ran over him, and an aunt with a fiery temper, but a heart of gold.
My journey on FH started proper from a black & white 1930 wedding photograph of my father's uncle, that came with a list of names.
How I wish I'd payed more attention to those stories, and the chance to share my new found knowledge with him.
For those that follow me, I hope they find my research of interest and carry on where I left off.

[g eli]

I was extremely lucky. I was given a book which a distant cousin had researched, there was a family tree going back to my 3G grandfather, which included all the descendants of his thirteen children, including me and my sisters. Each chapter was written by one of siblings descendants so it was an interesting mixture of facts anecdotes and misconceptions.
This started me enquiring about the rest of my ancestors, but it wasn't until I tried to trace my OH's family that I really got involved, his father wasn't sure what his parent's names were, they had both died whilst he was fairly young.The only fact was that OH's grandfather had been killed in some sort of bus accident. I managed to find a possible candidate, but it wasn't until the 1911 census came out that I was able to go any further. I got an email from a family member that said we've found him he's mistranscribed but both of his names are there, He was born with one name married under another, and used both names thereafter.
Iwas hooked.

[Johnf04]

Dad told me, when I was young, my grandmother, Agnes CAIRNS, was related to Rob Roy McGregor. When I finally developed an interest in genealogy, I discovered that Agnes was the descendant of Irish immigrants to Scotland, and that only one of my Scottish father's grandparents was Scottish. The other three were Irish.