Where is your 'ancestral home'

[*sparkle*]

Theres two things here that bemuse/amuse me...

1. How you can go somewhere for the first time and feel really comfortable... and then find some of your ancestors were actually from there!

2. How sometimes families don't really move very far. I'm from the borders and have chased one live back to the reivers.

But as I started this thread... I feel that my ancestral 'home' is Lochfoot. My Dad used to spend a lot of time there as a boy and has many happy memories cycling there from Dumfries. I used to do a lot of running in Mabie forest which it and Hills wood border the 'family farm'.

I don't know about anyone else but its certainly made me feel a lot more at peace with myself and my surroundings.... just have to persuade my O/H that its a good idea to move back 'home'.....

Tx

[tinav40]

My ancestral home feels like home but that's because it is.
Not very well travelled us country bumpkins.

[wotty]

My cousin and I put this down to something called ancestral memory. It's kind of imprinted in your subconscious. But surely if that was the case, you would have several places that gave you that feeling?

An odd thing happened to me in Rothbury. I did know that my great great grandfather was from there when I visited. I spent a few evenings trying to connect psychically with his spirit asking for some clues where to look next (well, you'll try anything if you have a brick wall like this one!). A couple of days later we decided to go for a pub lunch. There were a few to choose from but one appealed to me most. Fairly average pub lunch when we got inside. When I returned home I did some research about the pub and found that it had been owned in the 1860s by a person with the same name as my great great grandfather and someone with whom he had been living in 1841.

Clearly I wasn't specific enough when I was mentally asking Edward Pyle to make contact!

[47813]

This is a very good question


I guess on sheer number of people from one area, my ancestral home would be Rochdale, my birthplace.
However i was the very last of the last generation of certainly close family to be born in Rochdale, everyone has moved away now and even though having gone back with my tree and now feeling as if i'm related to half of Rochdale, i have to say as time goes by in my life i feel as if it is just that, the home of most of my ancestors.

Why?

1. because i left Rochdale when i was very small, too small to remember and so Preston where i've grown up feels like home. (Not that i've found anyone in my tree from Preston sadly - nearest was Blackpool)

2. Not all my branches come from Rochdale and that includes my lot, the Loughlin's

I would say like others have said, that your ancestral home is where you feel most comfortable and that for me is like i said - Preston
Though i still retain a fondness for Rochdale.

Jonathan

[ozlady]

I've always had an affinity with the Welsh Borders, Herefordshire and mid-Wales. It was quite recently that I discovered that's where my roots are.

[Lydart]

Ancestral memory is something that I'm sure is genuine ... and I'd go so far as to say it can go back millenia ... look at the native poeples in Australia; they have it. 

It sounds very far fetched, but when I lived in E. Africa, I felt a strong affinity with one area we visited many times; it was a feeling of 'I've been here before' ...

Some will say I'm being totally daft ... but I dont know ...    Early man came out of Africa ...



Right !  Maybe I need a strong cuppa coffee ... 

[LizzieW]

I always thought my background was Lancashire, although I did know some of my mum's ancestors were from Lincolnshire, but having now done some research, I find that I am more Yorkshire than anything else, with Cheshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Scotland thrown in.

Oddly though the place I feel most at home is around the Tarn and Lot in France.  The first time I went there I felt as if I knew the area and I didn't want to go home when the holiday was over - not the usual not wanting the holiday to end, but more that I was already at home and didn't want to go back to England.  As far as I know I don't have any French ancestors, although maybe that is the clue to my brickwall, who knows?

I also love the sea - not the beach, can't stand the sand - but the rough rolling seas, I've since found out that some of my male ancestors were fishermen/trawlermen. 

Lizzie

[Pegasuss]

Since i was a nipper I have always felt at home Up in the Mountains of North Wales!

Then (@17-18Yrs old) I started searching for My Ancestors, most of whom have lived within @1-2 Mile square (in Liverpool) since @1800 (some only moving 1 or 2 streets in a few Generations!

30+ years after starting my searchs I have recorded ancestors from:

Lancashire (pre-1800-to Present)

Cheshire (pre-1800)

Shropshire (pre-1860's)

Ireland (1808-C1855)

Prussea (pre-1850)

South Africa (C1920-Present)

New Zealand (C1945-Present)

Canada (C1910-?)

USA (C1945-Present)

& Caernarvonshire, North (Welsh) Wales

P.S.

On My First visit to Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire (@14-15Yrs old) we were looking for a good place for a Snack I lead the Family through a few streets to what turned out to be the best Cafe in the Town.

P.P.S.

I served My Time as an Apprentice Plater/Fabricator Welder, & now have found that even that is in My Genes (a few Ancestral Boilermakers & a couple of Blacksmiths).

[Nick29]

Some will say I'm being totally daft ... but I dont know ...    Early man came out of Africa ...

Ummm....... I think you ought to Google continental drift