RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: blinky on Tuesday 01 February 05 17:33 GMT (UK)
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just wondering what everyones reason is for researching their family history is.mine is because my dad knew nothing of his family,i have since found out that we had family living five miles away.
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My need to find out about my ancestry began when I began my own family. I too come from a family (maternal & Paternal) where there is no knowledge of our ancestry & I wanted to change that.
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I'm curious ..... especially when I'm told I shouldn't be asking about something
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I was brought up by my maternal grandmother. When she died i found a "treasure chest".
It was a case full of BMD's and burial information. Alot of whom i had never heard of. I then started asking questions and it followed on from there.
Also like Falkyrn said "I'm curious"
Best wishes
Pauline
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My grandmother was never told who her parents were and was brought up by her 'grandparents' and 'aunts'.
She tried a few years before she died, to get a birth certificate, and was told that she was not registered at the then St Catherines House, and the church which was on her christening certificate had had a bad fire in 1970, so she just left it, thinking she wouldn't find out.
Then, my cousin from my dads side of the family started doing that side of the family tree, and that gave me the urge to start my mums side of the family's history.
Rebecca
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But surely by 1970 records dating from when your grandmother was born should already have been sent off long since to the Diocesan wossname, or to the County Record Office? ???
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Well, you'd have thought so wouldn't you! Seeing as she was born in 1906!
Although it seems that this particular church had decided to keep its records >:(
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Ours started because my husband thought he had a "made up" surname. He always thought that their/our name should have been something slightly different. He was right! For reasons best known to themselves, my inlaws married in this contrived version of father in law's name and stuck to it!
Casalguidi
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I was helping out a nice lady from New York once in the Family Records Centre, who was having a bit of trouble finding her Glucklich relations. As I helped her look for them in the ledgers, I commented that glucklich was German for "happy". She replied: "Well they woin't, so they changed it!" ;D
I wish I'd kept contact details for her! :(
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One of my cousins decided to research a little known part of the family, and casting around for allies, picked on me! Once I got into it and found various intriguing little mysteries, I was hooked! I love wrestling with mysteries and trying to solve them. Of course we have had some success but found a lot more mysteries! I don't know whether to thank or curse my cousin - I've had a lot of fun (and a lot of frustration!) but I used to have some spare time once!! (Sigh!)
MarieC
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Just (originally) to lay the ghost of a family legend that my g'g'g'father had been cheated out of inheriting an estate, all he got was £10.
Ray
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I started searching my family history as we wondered if we had any spanish ancestors,as my brother has dark hair and darkish skin,compaired to my brother and myself, my great grandparents were from Cornwall and Mum said that the Spanish envaded Cornwall years ago, not sure when,anyway haven't found anything yet on that side of the family, but thought I had when our great grandmother on the other side of the family had a Arabic name on the 1881 census and I thought that was the answer but it turned out to be a spelling mistake, her name was Hannah, never mind I have had great fun and have got in touch with some distant family members.
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My intrest was sparked years ago by stories my father told me of his life as a delivery boy for the family grocery business in somewhere called Parsons Green in the 1930S.
The vision of him struggling around on this huge bike with a basket stayed with me. A life time in the Navy prevented any resarch but a few months ago I thought why not and I have had lots of fun.
Smokey
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My dad had often expressed an interest in tracing the family tree and I brought him a book to start filling in. We both have a love of history
He died six years ago and I inherited the book (although he hadn't filled a lot of it in). I then started to pick my mums brains a bit about the family but let it drop again (I didn't have access to the Internet or the spare time to go up the archive office)
Following the death of my mum last year and the birth of my only nephew I decided to get my finger out and do something about it
Now my only regret is that I didn't do this years ago they would have both loved to know what I have discovered about the family
Willow x
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My dad lost his own father when he was 12 and his mother took him away from where he grew up to where she grew up. As a result, he knew nothing about his family other than the names of some of his uncles and aunts and two or three cousins. I transcribed our parish records with a view to raising some money helping out genealogists and after finishing that decided it would be nice to know about my own background.
Does anyone else share my experience that whilst young, the only thing that matters is the future and dreams of what you are going to do with your life dominate? As you grow older and have a family of your own and parents start to pass away, the past becomes much more important. Just curious.
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People are always asking if my surname (McIlduff) was Scottish or Irish. My dad's Scottish but his dad was born in Ireland so wanted to find out where the name came from. When I hit a brick wall with McIlduff I decided to try my mums side. She never got on with her mum and so we had no contact with that side of the family and I wanted to just find out about the relatives I never knew.
From something that started out as just 'curiosity' it has now become an obsession ;D
Fiona
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About 18 months ago my daughter was asking about her grandparents (my parents) because she doesn't remember anything about them.
Hardly suprising! - she was 4 weeks when my dad died and 11 and a half months when my mother died. (She's 27 today!)
This got me thinking and I realised that I knew absolutely nothing, other than a surname about my own maternal granddad hence the start of my research.
And I'm totally addicted!!!!!
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Nick,
Yes, I really resonate with what you said - I think this is how it is for many of us. I don't have children of my own, but I do have a lot of nephews and nieces, and as you say, as the oldies start to pass away you do a lot of thinking about the family and about where we have come from.
I am just sorry that I didn't start before my dad and one particular aunt died. They would probably have had answers to some of my questions, and ways of banging holes in some of the brick walls!!!!
Still, better late than never. I too am totally addicted!
MarieC
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Marie
It is exactly for this reason that I have been trying to persuade my wife to extract as much information as possible from her very elderly great aunts before it is too late. Long before I got into genealogy, I overheard them gossiping at a wedding about a mutual ancestor (perhaps two generations earlier than they were) who had incurred the displeasure of her family by 'marrying beneath herself'. It is this sort of information that would be incredibly difficult to dig up simply by researching parish registers and the like, so I would encourage all others on this board to do likewise. I'm not currently researching my wife's family - she shows only passing interest in the subject, but if one of my children inherits the bug 20 or 30 years hence, this will all be good background for them.
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But almost invariably they won't give you even basic information, such as the date of the marriage of their own grandparents. I spent hours, and a lot of money, searching for all kinds of information and obtaining certificates, only to find on my grandmother's death that she had been hoarding original certificates in a box under her bed.
Just WAIT till I get over there! >:( >:(
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Marie,
For many years I kept thinking of doing a family tree search as there were a lot unknown about grandparents, lack of any knowledge of gggrdparents etc.. When our first grandson arrived I realized I had put off doing it until all my parents, aunts, grdparents, uncles etc. were all gone and I had missed the opportunity to question them. I decided that my grandson should have as much information as my wife and I had before we passed on. I then realized Icould research further and was successful in clearing up a lot of mysteries of our family, though it has raised a few more puzzles. I am now on my 268 th page of the Book of his family genealogy and am completely addicted to finding more answers.
Tallted
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Marie
It is exactly for this reason that I have been trying to persuade my wife to extract as much information as possible from her very elderly great aunts before it is too late. Long before I got into genealogy, I overheard them gossiping at a wedding about a mutual ancestor (perhaps two generations earlier than they were) who had incurred the displeasure of her family by 'marrying beneath herself'. It is this sort of information that would be incredibly difficult to dig up simply by researching parish registers and the like, so I would encourage all others on this board to do likewise. I'm not currently researching my wife's family - she shows only passing interest in the subject, but if one of my children inherits the bug 20 or 30 years hence, this will all be good background for them.
Nick, have you thought of interrogating your wife's relatives yourself?
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I have always loved history. As a child it was my favorite subject in school and genealogy is My history. I started young, in my early 20's and lucked out because many older rellys who were (b) in 1800's were still alive to get me started. Leagen
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I too have always enjoyed history and the realisation came to me that although I had read much about bygone days I knew very little of my own family history. Sadly this realisation came after both my parents and grandparents had passed away. My mother had often entertained me with stories of her own early life, so I decided to find out more, and as so like many others became hooked on family history. We live our everyday lives completely unaware of the history that surrounds us, no matter where we live. My family history has now become entwined with the local history of the area I was born, brought up and indeed still live. It's fascinating :o
pritch19
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I was a history nut from the age of at least seven, which is around the age I started shining lights in my great-grandmother's eyes and interrogating her about her parents. After years of doing my family history, I did a BA in history at Birkbeck College (in the evenings, whilst working full time in the day) and loved every minute of it. But I can remember even at Birkbeck, being laughed at by at least one other student for expressing an interest in social history. Seems some people don't think the history of ordinary daily life is really respectable - it has to be just military, political and economic history, nothing else.
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Mine is because my Father knew nothing about his side of the family.
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In the early 80's I arrived home sick after living in the highlands of Papua New Guinea for 3 years. Went to a naturopath for treatment and apart from malaria I was told everything else was hereditary which I didn't believe. :-\ :-\ Checked with Dad ...........he verified all the naturopath had told me. That started me thinking ....it was then I became interested in my past families and their possible effect on my life and my children especially medicalwise. Along with compiling a medical family tree I started to trace the lives etc of my ordinary but very special families and as history has always fascinated me why not combine the two? It has been a labour of Love over more than 20 years :) :) :)
Juddee
Have discovered that heart and lung problems were and are the common theme in a lot of my families :( :(
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My husband & I decided to move to somewhere neither of us had lived before (we're both from military parentage!). We trawled the country, sticking pins in maps and ended up in a small Somerset village (Bradford on Tone).
We arranged to get married in the picturesque village church and after going to chat to the vicar, stopped to read the war memorial at the church gates. We found two people with my husband's surname!
After much questioning of soon-to-be in-laws, it turns out it was my father-in-laws Grandfather and his brother! My father-in-law left home at 15 and hadn't had anything to do with his family, when we said where we were moving to he hadn't thought to tell us the connection as he didn't think we'd be interested in the little he knew of his family .
That set me off.....little miss nosey ;D
Since then I've been addicted.......and now so is my father-in-law!
Tabitha
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I grew up with a very small family around me. I always longed for an older sibling or some close cousins around. I had cousins but they were living too far away.
My reason stemmed out of curiosity with my Irish side I suppose. My mum, and her family are Irish, who moved to Britain when my mum was a young girl. She and my grandparents would talk about so and so back in Ireland ( big family), none which I ever met except for the immediate family. And I longed for a big family
For years before my grandmother died I asked my mum to sit down with my gran and write out a family tree, because I wanted to know more about the family I never met.
She never did get around to it, and predictably my grandmother died.
Years later I got talking to someone who was tracing their tree, and it sparked up my curiosity again . I decided to trace my father’s side ( and not my mum’s side, as that seemed too difficult ,and thought that my father’s side would be “easy” ( I wish! lol ).
Then It was all downhill from there on – I’m hooked :D .
I suppose it’s a mixture of many things, History, which I love, the challenge in solving something, and finding out who were these people are that I never knew, and am here on this earth because of them.
Some people in the lines I’m getting attached to, as if I knew them, others I’m not for some odd reason.
My fav is my GG grandmother and her family, Gwenllian Roberts. I would have loved to have met this lady, she seemed such a strong character. Apparently she told my grandmother(who’s family were English speaking) who married her son, to speak welsh as they were in her country now, needless to say they didn't get on with each other at all. Gwenllian absolutely refused to speak English right up into her final years of life .
she also apparently used to help out all the very poor old women in the village ( although she was poor herself, and by this time she was a very old dear herself), She was a giver , never took from anyone herself. Funny thing before I even knew of her character ( which was told to me by my dad, who can just about remember her as a very old lady) - I was getting attached to this person tracing her through the censuses, and when I was told later on about her strong willed character, it did not surprise me in the least.
I also get attached to some of my husbands lot, and they are no blood relations of mine of course. I love his “crim” line .One of them apparently got arrested for beating someone up and holding them hostage in the 1700’s . Then further down the tree ( same line) every census that they were in ( moved 5 times as well, father and son went through a couple of wives too) they were living next door to a pub lol . The best was when one of them ( by this time he was in his late 70’s) , was lodging with his daughter and her husband next door to yet another a pub ,which was owned by the husbands brother. I guess he saw his opportunity for a free pint when his daughter had a brother in law with a pub . None of the blood family were pub owners, they just liked to live next door to them all the time. I think it’s safe to say this family liked a good pint lol. ;D
I suppose the main big reason for me is I enjoy it.
:)
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Quote from Nick Carver following:
Marie
It is exactly for this reason that I have been trying to persuade my wife to extract as much information as possible from her very elderly great aunts before it is too late. Long before I got into genealogy, I overheard them gossiping at a wedding about a mutual ancestor (perhaps two generations earlier than they were) who had incurred the displeasure of her family by 'marrying beneath herself'. It is this sort of information that would be incredibly difficult to dig up simply by researching parish registers and the like,
Nick,
This is so true, as I'm finding out! There is some kind of big mystery surrounding my g-g-grandfather's life and death, and as you say, official records just don't give you this information! I can make all kinds of wild guesses, but I don't know which, if any, is right. Had I asked my dad and this particular aunt before they left us, I'm sure they would have been able to tell me something, even if it is a real skeleton in the closet! I join you in urging everyone to talk to their oldies while they are still with us. My experience is that most family members will talk to you about their ancestry - most are pleased to do this.
Marie
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Hi,
My late paternal Grandmother was brought up in a home in London from the age of one. Though she asked the Home many times, she was not allowed to know anything about her family, except they were Londoners. Despite she had a happy life :) and formed a life long bond with her Foster Parents of five years.
Unfortunately Gran met a tragic death in the early 70's and so with that and her unknown beginning I decided to try and found out about her family. Started 23 years ago but did not get far so put it out of mind. Four years ago read an article about researching your family history with the help of the Internet ....
I still have not found out what happened to Great Grandmother, but traced her siblings and some of their family. Also researched the other side of the family and met nice people round the World so not all in vain. :)
Reyz
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Hi,
My late paternal Grandmother was brought up in a home in London from the age of one. Though she asked the Home many times, she was not allowed to know anything about her family, except they were Londoners. Despite she had a happy life :) and formed a life long bond with her Foster Parents of five years.
Unfortunately Gran met a tragic death in the early 70's and so with that and her unknown beginning I decided to try and found out about her family. Started 23 years ago but did not get far so put it out of mind. Four years ago read an article about researching your family history with the help of the Internet ....
I still have not found out what happened to Great Grandmother, but traced her siblings and some of their family. Also researched the other side of the family and met nice people round the World so not all in vain. :)
Reyz
Found after 16 years of searching!
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Congratulations Reyz, just shows that persistence does sometimes pay off! How did you break down the brick wall?
Kind regards
GS
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Thank You GS :)
After trying all the usual ways and others found no trace. nothing. Found most of her Family.
I finally sent off for a Death Certificate for her young Nephew. The reason being his Father was a Publican and thought there might be an address of a Pub that could help.
Not holding much hope. Great Grandmother was the informant of the Death! She had crossed through her maiden name and put the surname of her common-law Husband.
Turns out a couple of years after putting my Grandmother in the Home she took up with a married man and had another daughter! The daughters birth was not registered. Never Married.
1901 Census no sign of her and the 2nd daughter and the Father still with his Wife and Children.
On the 1911 Census is with her 2nd daughter and the Father but put a different Christian name and knocked 6 years off her age. Place of birth correct though :)
I had come across the 2nd daughter several times before but could not link her to the Family. Had I checked all through the Electoral Register years I would have found my Great Grandmother living with her.
Sorry a bit long winded but it might help someone.
regards Reyz :)
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I was a history nut from the age of at least seven, which is around the age I started shining lights in my great-grandmother's eyes and interrogating her about her parents. After years of doing my family history, I did a BA in history at Birkbeck College (in the evenings, whilst working full time in the day) and loved every minute of it. But I can remember even at Birkbeck, being laughed at by at least one other student for expressing an interest in social history. Seems some people don't think the history of ordinary daily life is really respectable - it has to be just military, political and economic history, nothing else.
I've had that, being told it's not proper history.
I've always been fasincated by history. I originally started to try and discover if I belonged anywhere as I'd spent my childhood being told I wasn't welcome, go back where you came from etc. But the fascination took hold, who were my ancestors, what did they do, what was their life like, did they have any impact on world events, how did world events impact on them and so on. So 18 years later still at it.
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Thank You GS :)
After trying all the usual ways and others, found no trace of GGM. Found most of her Family but not with any of them. No distant cousins I found had heard of her.
I finally sent off for a Death Certificate for her young Nephew. The reason being his Father was a Publican and thought there might be an address of a Pub that could help.
Not holding much hope.
Success!! my Great Grandmother was the informant of the Death! She had crossed through her maiden name and put the surname of her common-law Husband.
Turns out a couple of years after putting my Grandmother in the Home she took up with a married man and had another daughter! The daughters birth was not registered. Never Married.
1901 Census no sign of her and the 2nd daughter and the Father was with his Wife and Children.
On the 1911 Census She is with her 2nd daughter and the Father but put a different Christian name and knocked 6 years off her age. Place of birth correct though :)
I had come across the 2nd daughter several times before but could not link her to the Family. Had I checked all through the Electoral Register years, I would have found my Great Grandmother living with her.
Sorry a bit long winded but it might help someone.
regards Reyz :)
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I have a copy of a pedigree chart that my maternal grandfather made. When Ancestry offered a free membership for 2 weeks I thought, what the heck. His pedigree chart was spot on and I was hooked. That was 4 years ago and I have traced each branch of my mother's side to the water's edge (I live in California). That got me back to the Mayflower (1620) in some cases but none later than 1750.
My paternal aunt had written down a "Family History" which was based on stories passed to her by her mother and grandmother (they were from England). I have found some accuracy and some myth in that History and am currently trying to follow those stories, but tracing a "Jones" in Wiltshire is quite a challenge to say the least. Still, I am making progress. :)
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I was a history nut from the age of at least seven, which is around the age I started shining lights in my great-grandmother's eyes and interrogating her about her parents. After years of doing my family history, I did a BA in history at Birkbeck College (in the evenings, whilst working full time in the day) and loved every minute of it. But I can remember even at Birkbeck, being laughed at by at least one other student for expressing an interest in social history. Seems some people don't think the history of ordinary daily life is really respectable - it has to be just military, political and economic history, nothing else.
Any person who tells you that is ignorant of the truth no matter how intelligent they are.
All history (except natural & geological history both of which are to a certain extent) is determined by the individuals discovered by family history and those individual's actions and re-actions are determined by the family and social interactions they were brought up with.
To ignore family history the historian is being lazy and only skimming the surface of history.
Cheers
Guy
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I was given an old wallet which had been passed down to my mother containing letters and merchant navy papers for my gg grandfather. This prompted me to research that branch of the family in the old fashioned way with lots of visits to St Katherine's House and rotating eyeballs from looking at censuses on microfilm. This ended up at a couple of brick walls which I still haven't been able to break. The need to visit Scotland meant that I didn't follow up my paternal line and eventually research stalled when the children came along.
When one of my daughters sent me a link to some published material showing my father's ancestors I started using the net. I have now got as far back in all the lines as I can track without travelling to the other end of the country to search records that aren't digitised.
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Puzzle solving/detective work.
BugBear
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A lot of reasons and many have been said here
Puzzle solving, history. Hearing family tales and trying to work out why my grandmother seemed to be ostracised from her family. And my dads cousin had started doing it and I loved what he had started and have taken over most of it
And ultimately for my son to know.
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Both my grandfathers died before I was born, so I knew next to nothing about my family.
Curiosity, and a love of research (of any type), led me on.
Discovered that grandfather was actually married 3 times - he divorced his 2nd wife to marry my gran ;D
Eventually discovered the link to John Constable (his grandmother is my 6x Great-grandmother).
Now I just enjoy the research - and have started to get paid for it!! :D
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just wondering what everyones reason is for researching their family history is.mine is because my dad knew nothing of his family,i have since found out that we had family living five miles away.
Exactly the same reason, my dad died when I was 17 and always said he didn't know the name of his mum who had died when he was 4yrs old........ now of course I know all he had to do was look on his birth cert, but didn't think of that at the time.... so I started researching FH to find his mums name
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For family mostly but the more I look into things the more curious I get ;D
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Always hitting walls though which is massively frustrating >:(
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Sorry a bit long winded but it might help someone.
regards Reyz :)
Great to read your brickwall story & its resolution. Tenacity is so important in family history research. I might make a list of my brickwalls so that whoever takes up the 'baton' after I have died can know where they are & hopefully be as tenacious.
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My reason is same as mentioned by many others on Roots. It was "Curiosity" that kick-started my research.
Most of my direct line back to 16th century were just ordinary folks who probably had hard lives.
There are some mysteries and some sad things in my direct line.
There is always more to find out especially when you look at the other branches of ancestors cousins and uncles. Doing this I discovered a "Gentleman" landowner and a Nottinghamshire Lace Manufacturer.
Other possible distant relatives I am trying to uncover include a merchant sailor who was Shanghaied onto Cooks HMB Endeavour. This explorer ship discovered Australia and mapped coastlines of New Zealand north and south islands. It sailed for almost 3 years from 1768 and 38 of the 95 crew died on the journey.
A murder at Ambergate, Derbyshire in 1875 over the repayment of a 3/- debt.
Then there was an unwanted child who was brought up in a workhouse and at age 25 was convicted of rioting and setting fire to a silk mill and was sentenced to death. At the eleventh hour there was a reprieve of sorts and he received the "King's Mercy" and in 1833 was deported on the prisoner ship Jupiter with a life sentence on Van Diemen's Land.
Our research is never ending.
Andy_T
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I began this never ending journey after my father died. My mother gave me lots of papers including BMD certificates for his family.
After thanking her I asked where hers were. She replied that she did not have any.
I decided to find out what I could.
Kooky
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My reason is also to find answers to questions. Those come from information that had no real background and seemed awfully unlikely. I too am curious and I wanted to know and to find those answers. History and Geography were my favourite subjects at school and I followed the history through to UNI. There I also discovered the distinction between types of history.
My family became so small following the death of my Dad, I hardly knew any relatives, especially on my Dad's side. My grandmother was English, there were stories of Irish members and people I did not know. Eventually my grandmother died and this began niggling at me. It all came tumbling in when I realised that I was pretty much the last of my era. I decided then that this needed to be done for all. I got kick started by receiving a 22 page compilation of my husband's family on his paternal line from a relative in England. I am so grateful for this.
I decided about 15 yrs ago to start. Yes many brick walls and in most cases little information. My Aunt was responsible for everything following my grandmother's death but a box full of correspondence from England unfortunately lost it's contents in the sorting. What that may have told me I shall never know. I just wish I had sat and read all those years ago.
Now I follow every family group as they add to the family history. It is an amazing journey and ... yes addicted is the buzz word.
Essnell
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.... tracing a "Jones" in Wiltshire is quite a challenge to say the least. Still, I am making progress. :)
just try chasing one in Wales .... ;D
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My mum saying " Kacker the mort adoi. " to my aunt :-X
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.... tracing a "Jones" in Wiltshire is quite a challenge to say the least. Still, I am making progress. :)
just try chasing one in Wales .... ;D
ditto for chasing Thomas in Wales and McCarthy in Ireland ???
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.... tracing a "Jones" in Wiltshire is quite a challenge to say the least. Still, I am making progress. :)
just try chasing one in Wales .... ;D
ditto for chasing Thomas in Wales and McCarthy in Ireland ???
Or James Wilson and Ann Weir in Scotland!
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Watching Alex Haley's Roots mini series many years ago. I started asking questions with my mother, who in turn directed me to my grandmother and paternal aunt. And so it began......
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Some years after my father died, I began to wonder who his parents were. They both died when he was a child. He had said very little about them, and there was no one else to ask. Also, I had been named after my dad (an unusual name), and he after his dad, and wondered how far back it went.
This was 5 years ago. I've found out so much about them, and about several more generations going back, that I wouldn't know where to start if I tried to tell anyone their story. The truth about my family's past has been so very much more interesting than my assumptions were.
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.... tracing a "Jones" in Wiltshire is quite a challenge to say the least. Still, I am making progress. :)
just try chasing one in Wales .... ;D
especially when all you know is they were from Monmouthshire! ;D
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Some sixty years ago my mother remarked that my cousin was researching his family tree and suggested I do mine. I had a busy social life and at the time I thought I knew everything (but now know I knew nothing) about our large family, so I demurred. A thought has passed through my mind .... "flutter by, flutter by, pretty little butterfly.....
I started feeling guilty when, at the start of this century, my daughter took me to a medium where I learned a family member had died in the Great War. I knew nothing about this but an aunt confirmed that my maternal grandmother's oldest brother had been killed in action WWI.
My journey through past generations has been one of joy, excitement and sadness.