RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Braindead on Friday 11 September 20 07:38 BST (UK)
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I'm interested in the reasons people enjoy family history and genealogy. This question was prompted by seeing people's trees on ancestry that have many tens of thousands of names. Gathering that many is a very different approach from me. I'd never say that one way is correct or better but it got me thinking about what people enjoy.
For me, it's got a lot to do with making connections. I'll research a branch to the nth degree if I feel in some way connected but if not I lose interest. Defining connected is harder though. It could be a close family line, it could be an interest in them as a person. It can change from generation to generation.
I was able to make great progress on one family line because they were agricultural workers who never moved but they don't interest me for some reason.
I will admit that I enjoy the detective work, despite all the frustrations it can bring and I like trying to flesh out the lives of ancestors - I have written many thousands of words in short biographies of relatives.
So what do you enjoy?
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I grew up being called an interlouper. That I didn't belong and wasn't wanted in society so my initial motivation was to find out where I belonged, if I belonged. I soon became addicted to the search, the thrill when you find something and the satisfaction when I know I have methodically sorted out sources on a specific branch. I have also come across individuals who fascinate me.
I now have over 6000 people in my tree, not because I'm desperate to get as many people as possible but because I have been at this a while and have now been going through each direct ancestor one by one discovering their siblings, if their siblings married, children they may have had etc and given I have several families with more than 10 children (one with 18) it soon adds up. The details I have on people in my tree vary from just being names on a baptism record to a detailed biography. I haven't been up to researching the past couple of weeks but I generally try and aim for an average of at least one piece of info a week. This may be a new person but could be anything, eg a missing census entry, tax record, newspaper article etc relating to a branch.
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Thanks for the reply. I agree about the addiction of the search and thrill of discovery.
You mentioned about finding families of siblings of ancestors and discovering their families. Does there come a point when you think, "actually, this is just too remote from me, I'm not interested" or do you just keep going?
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Thanks for the reply. I agree about the addiction of the search and thrill of discovery.
You mentioned about finding families of siblings of ancestors and discovering their families. Does there come a point when you think, "actually, this is just too remote from me, I'm not interested" or do you just keep going?
Oh no! Sometimes I get exasperated with a line sometimes and put it to the side for a bit but never abandon a line completely. One of the things I find particularly fascinating is how diverse the descendants of one couple can be. I have one line back to a 16th cent farming couple and the diversity in their descendants in terms of both location and lifestyle is amazing with lots of interesting stories.
I see it as a lifetime hobby, something that can be put down and picked up again but never actually finished. I plan to pass what I do have onto my daughters.
Edit: My ultimate aim would be to bring each line back down to the present day. I will never achieve this with every line as not enough time to find that many people so siblings at each generation first.
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For me it's like doing a giant sudoku (which I also love), with the added bonus of knowing that what your ancestors did directly affected your own existence. Plus I love all the interesting names you discover along the way!
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I began, like most people probably, tracking down my ancestors, and in some cases their siblings. Then some years ago, I set myself a project to trace all the descendants of one of my Kentish 3xgreat grandfathers up to 1911, which considering the size of 19th century families was quite a task. Since then, I have written a separate chapter on each of his children and their families, some more interesting than others, and one or two abandoned as too boring to write up. Sorry! On the whole we are not an exciting family.
My tree, not on line, has 2362 people on it, but that also includes my husband's family and now my daughter-in-law's.
It has a lot to do with the chase and the detective work, and not only with family, but also local history. I have researched and written up several local people and families, and the research is just as exciting!
Quote from the OP - "Does there come a point when you think, "actually, this is just too remote from me, I'm not interested" or do you just keep going?" I have to say, I do reach that point at times.
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My maternal grandmother was adopted and initially I set out finding if there were any living cousins of my mother either from birth parents or adoptive family
Then expanded thinking most of my.grandfathers siblings emigrated so.there may be cousins he didnt know about
Combined with a project my sister had done about family traits of maternal grandfathers 7 siblings
She expanded it to grandads half siblings and the 1930s had big cousins reunions where family stories were discussed.
They were interested in my grandmas story she was a well loved auntie
So I persuaded my mother to do dna ...her cousin in Australia had had a test for her 80th birthday
And the search became detective work ..it was necesary to go back another two generations to understand matches
Accidently went bacl to 1800 on some lines but mostly concentrating on finding descendants of my own and my mothers great aunts and uncles.
Particularly enjoy detective work helping children or grandchildren of adoptees
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I started off at my mum's prompting with the aim of trying to prove one of the family stories she had been told as a child.
I've still not proved or disproved it; appropriate records are few and far between.
I found that I liked the problem solving. Working out which of the three possible people with that name it could be, for instance. I remember clearly the thrill of, having worked out where and when an ancestor was born, going to the fiche in the record office and finding his baptism at the church I'd predicted, in the year I'd predicted.
Sometimes it's a bit like a logic puzzle. Not quite sudoku, because the clues are of different types. Half the fun is working out where the clues are likely to be.
I particularly enjoy working out families where multiple marriages are involved. A couple of trees I've worked, neither being a blood relative, had multiple marriages galore, and one had a chap who used two surnames - neither being the one he was born and grew up with.
I'll also follow up on people I find "interesting" - an unusual name or occupation.
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On marriage I took my husbands surname. Once the children were older and I had time to think I realised I knew nothing about the family whose name I’d taken.
My in-laws had died before I met my OH and he had no surviving Uncles or Aunts.
When I was thinking of enrolling in a genealogy class my brother in law gave me an old brown leather suitcase full of photos, documents, letters, medals etc. An amazing treasure trove so I had a huge kick start in piecing it all together. Coupled with the fact I live in Edinburgh I could take myself of the Scotland’s People centre and ‘loose’ myself for many an hour.
Those early days were addictive, thrilling and gave me such a high I couldn’t shut up about it.
After many dinner times with eye rolling from my kids I used to go and talk to the friend who first encouraged me to start just so I could ‘offload’ and share the thrill.
I was never particularly interested in History at school but realised later it was social history I was interested in, I loved hearing my Nans stories of life when she was a girl.
I feel I know my ancestors and I have a picture of them in my head like characters in a book.
Little did I know that once those heady days of it coming thick and fast are over it can be very frustrating and brain scrambling, makes the prize all the sweeter though :D
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Thanks so much for your replies. I really enjoy reading everybody's stories. Like many people, I was given a box with old documents and letters which helped a lot. My grandfather had also started a family tree which gave me a good boost. I also enjoy the social history aspects, finding out how people lived and (very often guessing) the reasons for the decisions they made. The detective work and sense of achievement when making a breakthrough is great too.
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When my Brother and I sat down to discuss our family we soon learned that we only knew fragments, we knew Grandparents to varying degrees even though one died in 1932.
I can never remember seeing Paternal Grandparents until I was fifteen, they were separated and one lived five miles away the other two hundred.
Researching has opened up where we come from, and what makes us who we are.
Lancastrian for over five hundred years on one side and Yorkist for five hundred years on another branch gave us confirmation of some of our roots that we partially knew.
Learning that we are a load of Cobblers, or rather Welsh Shoemakers for over two hundred years was an eye opener.
Then finding that we go back five hundred years in Herefordshire was another surprise.
Now with DNA the tree is rapidly growing sideways and it will be a good starter for the family generations after my Brother and I when they develop an interest in where they come from.
My Grandkids and our Nephews kids already have printed Family Trees that show their Lineage all the way from themselves back to William The Conqueror.
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When I was 7, my dad died (1951). Mum took us from Lancashire to Lincolnshire to live with grandparents - my brothers were 11 and 14. Over the years, little did I know that I was learning about family through 'osmosis'...being around when mum and grandparents were discussing 'the old days', including when on 2 occasions, a great-uncle and my mum's cousin visited. On retirement, a name came up that I recognised and I had also recently reconnected with a cousin. I decided it would be a good 'project' and I have brought these people into being definitive members of the family. What I hadn't realised is how interesting families were, including my own. On either side I have a Napoleonic hero; a man transported to Australia for fraud who eventually ended up sending for his wife and son and making a good life for himself and the family; shipping fleet managers; cottage weavers and spinners; tradesmen and carters; physicians, gamekeepers and estate agents; and 2 separate women who 'shared' their husbands with another woman and other children. The list goes on. Himself has fishermen, a Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, agricultural labourers and farmers in his tree - and a distant relative in Earl Haig of WWI fame. What's not to keep one's interest? There is something new every single 'outing' and has the added bonus of keeping the brain going!
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I remember as a child playing in the village with my cousins, the farm was next door to the church and grave yard so we would often be in there generally looking for clay pipes of all things and found lots. We would read the gravestones and one had a distinctive 'family name' on it my cousins would say the person was 'their' family but not mine as I had a different surname and I would argue back it was both our ancestor ( as the surname was my mothers maiden name) you know silly child mentality..of who is most related than someone else ;D (the person turned out to be our great grandfather)
At that time I asked by gran who he was and she said she didn't know, she did but it took years before I eventually researched and it was the name of her father in law, but even then I knew people were hiding something......and that stayed with me, people were not telling the truth and that made me wonder why.
Then when my father died when I was a teenager I felt the need to find out more about his ancestors, I knew my granddad, my fathers dad until I was 5yrs old when he died but his mum had died when my dad was only 4yrs old and dad always said previously he didn't know her name....... in my ignorance I ddn't realise at that time all I needed to do was look at his birth certificate instead I started to research in an effort find his mothers name for my dad and faced the same problems with my mother 'not knowing' not having any records at home and telling me to let 'sleeping dogs lie'
So I started because I was nosey, because I knew they were hiding information and wondered why and what information they were hiding....then the research becomes addictive
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Please don’t keep me in suspense :o what were they hiding ?
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Just before I turned nine years old, my little sister was christened. As part of the christening tradition, the family tree came out and my little sister's name was added by my grandfather who had spent decades researching his family history. He showed me my name and all the names before mine and I was fascinated by the long lines of people who had been added before I had, and how we all connected. I didn't pick it up personally until I had my first child and wanted him to know where he'd come from, so with my grandfather's guidance I started researching not just my tree, but my husband's too. The addiction came quickly and with the uncovering of a family mystery, grew and grew until it was all consuming.. I've drawn up many branches of my family tree, but am still stuck on that family mystery.
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More lovely stories! They made me think about those family legends that I grew up hearing - such as great grandma who was a daughter of the Duke of Hamilton - not true but a very interesting story nonetheless, and at least partially unravelled thanks to Rootschat. I am always fascinated by the fact that I remember meeting her as a very young child. Her father was born about 1836 and I think Wow! I've met someone whose dad was born nearly 200 years ago. I also remember, again as a child, looking through the papers her husband illicitly kept from his time as a spy in World War 1. I am very fortunate in some of the papers that have survived - the oldest being g g g grandfather's apprenticeship indenture from 1827.
There are still some mysteries and stories I'd like to tell, but can't yet out of respect to people who are still with us.
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Please don’t keep me in suspense :o what were they hiding ?
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
My great grandfather had left his wife and children for another women, moved 3 miles away to the next village, waited a decade for his wife to die then married his other women, he is not buried at the graveyard where his headstone states he is ( along with wife) he is buried in an unmarked grave in the next village with wife number 2...so 'shameful' at that time..... of course there is lots of other bits and pieces, such as he left only his youngest son anything in his Will ( which would cause 'family issues' involving my granddad) although he signed over the farm to his three sons years before he died. I always wondered why my mother was so 'ignorant' to a family in the village...since I have researched and found out it was the 'other womens' family.
My family still don't know I know, my mother still refuses to discuss 'family' ( more hidden things I knew within 6 months of starting research) and about a decade ago I caught her having a sneak at my FH folder I had left on the table when visiting what she doesn't know is that folder has nothing in it that 'tells the real story' just basic facts like birth, marriage ( to first wife only) and death date , so things like it doesn't state my great grandfather was born/baptised with a completely different name and changed it, it doesn't mention 2 wife, or Wills/heirs, it doesn't state she married 6 months before I was born, not 18 months before that she likes people to think I see no reason to upset her ....the real FH is on my PC and printed out in another file..........
The thing is family scripts repeat and you can easily see it generation after generation, a decade ago she wanted me to 'sort out her pension' and phone 'them' which I did was asked question after question and had to ask her as I didn't know dates etc..such as because of her name when she 'remarried' (without informing me), she sold the house and moved house and counties ( without informng me AGAIN 3rd time she had moved without telling me) ...so 35 yrs 'married' I asked her the date she married and ' I got the look' of don't ask...then she said angrily "we are not married" so I asked him 'what the story was? seems she had just changed her name legally when they moved so everyone thought they were married, not because he didn't ask her to marry him..only a few days after I left I got a letter from her telling me they got married the next day after I left, so it was all booked, all planned and not even her only child was told........
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Definitely agree with the part that "family scripts repeat"!
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I remember as a child playing in the village with my cousins, the farm was next door to the church and grave yard so we would often be in there generally looking for clay pipes of all things and found lots. We would read the gravestones and one had a distinctive 'family name' on it my cousins would say the person was 'their' family but not mine as I had a different surname and I would argue back it was both our ancestor ( as the surname was my mothers maiden name) you know silly child mentality..of who is most related than someone else ;D (the person turned out to be our great grandfather
Some don't grow out of it. My Uncle didn't want me to research my paternal Gran's family because "that's my side of the family". He was named after her father. My MIL didn't want me to research at all, in fact ordered me not to. I kept researching, the documents I have used are public records and I've not published my research so don't see how she can legally stop me.
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Just looked through DNA matches for my Wife and found the Tree of an American relation.
he goes back and finds Sir Edward Stanley Earl of Derby and British Prime Minister then he stops researching.
We sent him a message four months ago saying that this person is a Gateway Ancestor and nothing has happened.
As they say up ere in tha Norf ..... nowt sa queer as folk
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Yes they absolutely do repeat. It’s amazing the lengths people went to to cover up their ‘shame’.
Ironically things that people wouldn’t bat an eyelid at today.
My mother always said ‘what will the neighbours think’ I wish I’d been brave enough to answer back
‘I don’t care and it’s none of their business’ but of course I didn’t dare ! :o ;D
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My great grandfather had left his wife and children for another women, moved 3 miles away to the next village, waited a decade for his wife to die then married his other women, he is not buried at the graveyard where his headstone states he is ( along with wife) he is buried in an unmarked grave in the next village with wife number 2...so 'shameful' at that time..... of course there is lots of other bits and pieces, such as he left only his youngest son anything in his Will ( which would cause 'family issues' involving my granddad) although he signed over the farm to his three sons years before he died. I always wondered why my mother was so 'ignorant' to a family in the village...since I have researched and found out it was the 'other womens' family.
Wow.! That sounds so much like my family. My great grandfather is rumoured to have had another family and left them to be with my great grandmother. They had five children together but never married. My great grandmother still used his name though. The mystery is that no-one knows who he is or was, or whether he really did have another family.
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Yes they absolutely do repeat. It’s amazing the lengths people went to to cover up their ‘shame’.
Ironically things that people wouldn’t bat an eyelid at today.
My mother always said ‘what will the neighbours think’ I wish I’d been brave enough to answer back
‘I don’t care and it’s none of their business’ but of course I didn’t dare ! :o ;D
The more I research the more I realise that we are just very complex human beings and nothing really changes, apart from what we accept/tolerate as time goes by so our attitude towards it,...people have children without being married, live 'in sin', have affairs, cheat, lie, steal etc etc and they always have, we just tend to talk about it now ::) but I can't for the life of me understand taking on the 'shame' of what an ancestors might have done
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We emigrated to Canada when I was four. I never met my paternal grandparents. I did meet my maternal grandmother as she came to visit us twice when I was little.
Neither of my parents talked about their families very much.
My dad did communicate with his youngest brother via letter but when my dad died in 1975...I was 26 then...that was the end of my contact with that side of my family.
My mum passed away in 2003 at the age of 90. Funnily enough it wasn't til then that I thought about where I came from and who my family were.
So that's when I started on my genealogical voyage.
Just by chance I found a maternal second cousin on a genealogical site about 12 years ago and we research together via the internet. It's been lots of fun and hard work. We finally met face to face for the first time two years ago :)
Some of our mutual discoveries have been very very interesting.
For example, it was a bit of a shock then when we discovered a few years ago that my mum's oldest brother married and had five children. What ??? :o That's one thing that my mum never mentioned.
Also that our great uncle had married twice and had five children. My 2nd cousin had met him several times at her grandmother's house but never knew this fact about him.
You have to shake your head and wonder why this information wasn't communicated. Ah well ::)
Since then I have had my DNA done and that really helped a lot in getting to my roots. Best thing I ever did. I even discovered that a couple of members of Rootschat are distantly related to me :D
I have also done my husband's tree way back to the 1600's to Cumberland and the Debatable Lands between Scotland and England. Then back to the 1500's on the Isle of Man. Then on his maternal to Kilkenny and Dublin. His family tree has been a never ending source of challenge and entertainment. Lots of juicy scandals and surprises :)
My family understand after all these years that I'm addicted to genealogical research and are very polite when I start discussing someone who died in 1821. They just nod and smile. That's okay as I'm enjoying myself and I don't intend to stop researching. Never ever :)
mab
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My mother's family come from immigrant families to South Africa in 1820. They came from all over the UK and Ireland, mainly established farming and manufacturing backgrounds who had perhaps fallen on hard times and were looking for a fresh start in a new country. So the families have been relatively easy to trace back quite far and it's been fascinating to go to the different places they came from and trace where they lived and are buried (their manor houses and farmhouses are still there and in some cases are now B&Bs and there are lots of gravestones and monuments in churches) and find out more about their lives and backgrounds. I've also had the help of my grandfather's research and memoirs about his family, and some of the other families wrote memoirs and letters which have given information, (although they have also revealed the settlers' attempts to 'improve' their origins!) Two of the lines, one Scots Irish and the other from an Orkney Laird, have gone back to nobility and royalty, which I am now researching with interest, and looking for effigies in churches and the remains of castles. Having grown up in South Africa, I have never studied English history, so am now having to catch up, and am avidly devouring 15th and 16th century historical fiction to put flesh on some of the names and the times they lived through.
I tend to splurge interest on each branch that I take up and do a write up of my findings with pictures. Then I move on to another branch. I've stopped adding names to my tree long go as it would all be far too much, and am concentrating on finding out interesting stories and anecdotes about the families to add to my write ups. I have enough to keep me busy for years to come!
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Watching the TV series "Roots" got me thinking about my own background. Starting with my mother, grandmother and aunt I asked lots of questions. And so it began.... 40 years later, and I'm still at it. ::)
On the matter of shame, I have always told people I want to record the family history, not judge it.
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Thank you to all who have replied to my initial question, I have read them all with great interest and love the different tales, ideas and people you have talked about. I'd love to hear more.
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These stories are fascinating
I started hunting my daily tree quite by accident, it was something my mother said which started me off, my gt grandfather was Swedish, my gt grandmother was already married when they met, somewhere around 1874, she never married him as she was still legally married, had at least 9 children with him, 2 by her legal husband and another, this last child had her first husband's name and shown as "dec" on his dertificate, he wasn't he was very much alive, she then took another man to court who paid up being as father, to this day I wonder how she did it, no DNA in early 1890's but she won her case, her Swedish "husband " was left to die in the workhouse, then she married a completely different man with a
different surname, she had enough to choose from, all fascinating stuff
Louisa Maud
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Like others on here I was aware of my paternal line to a certain extent, as my grandfather had drawn out a tree, although I later found out that many dates were wrong, and a few facts, but as my paternal line was a fairly unusual name, and very much linked with one fairly small area, when I started looking in detail myself, it was fairly easy. I also had help from a cousin of my father, still living in the "ancestral area" who had already researched very well, and documented those researches. I had almost no other useful surviving relatives, as had my OH on his ancestry...
When I'd spent a few years "sorting out" my lot, grinding to a halt over Irish ancestors on my maternal line, and taken that paternal line of mine back to the late 1500s, I took up my OH's line.
At that time I knew, apart from his mother's name, and more-or less his father's name, exactly two facts: His mother's mother was called "Tabitha", and she had the same birthday that I had. I was pretty sure of the close area of the country involved, and within three years I'd "got" OH's maternal line back to early 1700s, paternal line - with a few interesting "jumps" almost as far, and found out a great deal of interesting stuff by the way, as well as a couple of living relatives for each of us, both very nice people.
No gateway ancestors on either side, for either of us. All done with blood sweat and tears - and internet and county records and church records .... oh, the fun of the chase!
Since the main lines have stalled, I've pottered here and there along the generations, finding - not in my direct line, but related, a hangman, missionary, several assorted clerics, a Scottish politician, several brewers, links to a shipping line, and indirect links to a couple of well-known actors!! It all adds interest, poking around the branches of the family forests!
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Like others on here I was aware of my paternal line to a certain extent, as my grandfather had drawn out a tree, although I later found out that many dates were wrong, and a few facts, but as my paternal line was a fairly unusual name, and very much linked with one fairly small area, when I started looking in detail myself, it was fairly easy. I also had help from a cousin of my father, still living in the "ancestral area" who had already researched very well, and documented those researches.
That's almost word for word my story too!
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I was armed with some details from grandparents. Nan said grandad's maternal grandmother was called Wallaker Taylor and she had the unusual first name of Wallaker. She actually was Gertrude Taylor nee Wallaker.
I just love doing genealogy and the thrill of the chase. I recently found a gateway ancestor called Chadd Cockayne whose father's family have Irish, Welsh and Norman French blood, and some ancestors from Turin, Italy, who were of Frankish stock. The Cantilupes and MacMurrough's of Leinster. For years I searched for any Irish blood and I found I do have a drop or two. Doesn't matter how distant I still have some of the Emerald in me.