Which ancestral lines grab your attention?

[coombs]

My Suffolk ancestors grab my attention, especially the Fairweather line who in the early 1500s lived in Hopton On Sea near Great Yarmouth. They may have originated in Scotland and had trade links with East Anglia. Fairweather is a common name in Scotland and NE England.

[pinefamily]

Both my Swedish ancestors and my wife's Huguenot ancestors have also grabbed my interest as welll. I assume it is the difference factor.

[dowdstree]

Love all your stories about tracing your ancestors and what you have found out about them.

It makes my lot seem dull by comparison.

My maternal line were from Fife, Scotland and most of them stayed there all their lives. They were fishermen and weavers. That is discounting my maternal grandfather who was lost at sea in WW1 before my mum was born. Don't even have a name for him.

My paternal line were from various parts of Ireland who came to Dundee in the mid 1800's and worked in the Jute Mills.

Sometimes I take a branch of my family and find out what their lives and social conditions were like at that point in history and try to imagine what it would have been like to have lived with them. On one census I have mum, dad, eight children, granny, grandad and an orphaned nephew all living in a tenement house which consisted of two rooms and an outside toilet shared with numerous other families.
 
Do you know what it doesn't really matter to me that they were ordinary folk. I am just so pleased and proud to have them as my ancestors.

Dorrie

[pharmaT]

Love all your stories about tracing your ancestors and what you have found out about them.

It makes my lot seem dull by comparison.

My maternal line were from Fife, Scotland and most of them stayed there all their lives. They were fishermen and weavers. That is discounting my maternal grandfather who was lost at sea in WW1 before my mum was born. Don't even have a name for him.

My paternal line were from various parts of Ireland who came to Dundee in the mid 1800's and worked in the Jute Mills.

Sometimes I take a branch of my family and find out what their lives and social conditions were like at that point in history and try to imagine what it would have been like to have lived with them. On one census I have mum, dad, eight children, granny, grandad and an orphaned nephew all living in a tenement house which consisted of two rooms and an outside toilet shared with numerous other families.
 
Do you know what it doesn't really matter to me that they were ordinary folk. I am just so pleased and proud to have them as my ancestors.

Dorrie

I've analysed conditions too.  I often think it's amazing any of them survived long enough to have the next generation.

[pinefamily]

Dorrie,
Most of mine are/were "ordinary" folk too: farmers, tradesmen, ag labs too. But it doesn't lessen their interest to me.
That's why I started this thread, to ask why people are drawn more to one line over another.
Sometimes it might be the social history surrounding their lives as you have suggested.

[Caw1]

Interesting reading others FH - mine seem quite a boring lot in comparison! My maternal side the Harris/Harriss- oh yes someone somewhere along the line decided it was a good idea to add the extra 's' to make them sound more what imnot sure!

All the men were boiler makers even the ones who emigrated to Australia and appear to have moved around with the railways.... one side had a child born in each of the main railway towns.

My greatest interest has been researching sideways though... my paternal grandfather came from Switzerland and his family have been great to research in Uk as we're all related!

Some were associated with the sculptor Eric Gill in Sussex, another wrote papers on flora and forna on the Scottish islands and worked for the Natural History museum.

The gt uncle who caught my eye was married into the Cribb family, who were definitely an interesting lot... I digress.

Two Cribb brothers emigrated to Australia in the early 1800's, one was a baker and the other a chandler they ended up in Brisbane had businesses there and were politicians. One of the brothers was greatly involved with creating Queensland as a separate state from NSW.

All this peaked my interest as my son lives in Brisbane... I found cousins there too and have met and collaborated with them and between us we have brought others together it's been great fun!

So sometimes making sideways moves can pay dividends!

Caroline

[Nanna52]

I don’t follow a line as such, but will fixate on one person who takes my interest or a family. 

At the moment I am chasing my biological grandfather, I have worked out who are my great grandparents are and am down to five men.  I’ll find him eventually.  Before him it was my cousins WW1 experience.

[coombs]

My London ancestors grab me as does my Suffolk, Essex, Sussex, Kent, Durham, Oxfordshire, Dorset, Huguenot and Scottish ancestry. I do not associate as much with my Yorkshire, Berkshire or Gloucestershire ancestry and I do not know why.

So in that case the lines in my "biased towards" ancestors grab me.