Why research your family tree???

[sharonw]

I started about a year after both my parents died, it suddenly interested me after going through the family papers and photos.  I remembered that the 1901 census website was reputedly working well by then and started there.  Of course it meant the frustration of beginning just after I'd lost two of my best sources of info.

I've always enjoyed history, especially social and local history, and researching my family covers both but makes it personal and so much more interesting for that.  Plus, I love the sense of reaching back into the past, identifying a completely ordinary, obscure individual and making them matter again.  There's the detective, puzzle-solving impulse and wondering what other info is out there somewhere.

Also, I like being part of a community where complete strangers go out of their way to be so helpful to each other - it seems to attract very nice people!

[Lydart]

You are, of course, referring to RootsChat, Sharon !


Has anyone welcomed you to RC ?   If not, then welcome !  We try to be helpful !

[janan]

Hi Bubblefish84 (and Sharonw)

Welcome to Rootschat

From pre internet days I had copies of certificates, bible info and a rudimentary tree that my Wirksworth, Derbyshire born Great Grandpa had collected and then my Dad's father and brother had added to, but had never pursued. One day I happened across John Palmer's fantastic Wirksworth site and I was hooked.

I've always enjoyed history, especially social and local history, and researching my family covers both but makes it personal and so much more interesting for that.  Plus, I love the sense of reaching back into the past, identifying a completely ordinary, obscure individual and making them matter again.  There's the detective, puzzle-solving impulse and wondering what other info is out there somewhere.

Also, I like being part of a community where complete strangers go out of their way to be so helpful to each other - it seems to attract very nice people!

And I agree with all you said there Sharon.

Finding those traces even the most humble person left behind is so fantastic.




Jan

[murphy60]

Hi bubblefish,  

Had a teeny bit of family lore remembered from childhood and no one available  to confirm so sitting in front of the computer about 4 years ago started playing.......started finding things and then concluded this is a terrific  hobby!  

Everyday you learn something new about something......even when not your people.   Proved and DIS-proved some of that family lore and still stuck with a huge brick wall on the Irish!  

Love to exercise internet and investigative skills in a useful way!   Love history and the "stories"

RC is the best, most interactive, broad range and helpful site I've found!!!

So welcome and hope you find it fun, interesting, productive as well!!

lissa

[Mum44]

Like so many others, my interest came from papers in a box.... one was a newspaper report of my grandad's funeral, where two brothers Thomas and James were mentioned as mourners - I thought I'd find out what happened to them, since no-one in the family seemed to know anything.

Well - it just grew and grew like Topsy, because those weren't grandad's only siblings - he had brothers John, William, Harry, Edwin, George, Robert, Charles and Daniel as well ! And two sisters!

Quite at which point I became addicted I'm not sure, but - c'est l'histoire!  And of course the apparently obligatory Irish brick wall - in this case one on each side!

But it's by far the most absorbing and fascinating hobby I've ever had and the people you "meet" are fantastic - here on RC particularly, and also contact with other people researching your family leads to a real extended family - as far as Australia even!

And you learn so much about all manner of things which you never would have even heard of otherwise!

You'll have a ball - we do !

[stoney]

I can remember when, as a child, senior members of my family used to get together (Christmas, weddings, fenerals etc.) that eventually the conversations would get onto the subject of "....do you remember when..." or there were disputes about who had said or done whatever - then out would come the old photos and the anecdotes.

I was fascinated about the stories of people and events that had passed down the years, so when we got access to the internet one Christmas I determined my New Years' resolution would be to trace the family history.

Having pooled all the photos, documents and certificates I could muster from around the family, I had the basics from which to tackle internet sites - and the rest is, as they say, "history"!

Many of the family "legends" have been disproved, or at least corrected - it has also been interesting to find more than several grains of "truth" in  some of the anecdotal memories of elderly relatives!

[alllegs]

Because I'm VERY nosey!!!

I became interested in history in general whilst studying the Victorians in year 6 at primary school.  We had been looking at extracts for the 1881 census for our Village and found various names and addresses.  We then went for a village walk to see thse houses which were still standing, whilst walking through the churchyard we discovered some of the graves of the people we'd found on the census, it kind of spiralled from there.  I constantly quizzed my parents and grandparents for info and drew basic trees.

Then I found out that my maternal gran's mother died when gran was a tiny baby and she didn't know anything about that side of the family.  Gran gave me a forget-me-not bracelet with various unknown names engraved on it which had been sent by 'Aunt Pattie' (aka Martha Jane - is it any wonder I couldn't find her!) from America.  That made me determined to find something out for her.  She was certain I'd never find anything, until Jane (aka Nutty) found my great gran living with an aunt on the 1901, from there I was able to build up a lot of info and find living relatives in the US, cousins of gran who knew of her and lived doors away during their childhood which gran knew nothing about.

Also, my paternal gran was a bit of a writer and penned a short story about her grandmother, The Voyage of Mary Ann Fisher.  This gave me names and dates to work with and the story was amazing, the highs and lows of a poor fishermans daughter who was taken in by a 'rich' fish merchant who married her and took her away from her Norfolk roots up to Yorkshire only for him to be disowned and shunned by his father on marrying a 'poor' girl.  Mary Ann suffered the harsh reality of living below the bread line with hungry mouths to feed.  She gave up on her useless lazy husband and worked her fingers to the bone for her and her children's survival.  Anyway he died, she remarried a decent man, and they all lived happily ever after.

Now, I'm not sure how true this story is but Mary Ann did leave Norfolk for Yorkshire upon marrying and I assume her life was hard and the names and dates were almost spot on. And it's great to have a bit of an insight into my great great grandmothers life.

Basically, other than being a nosey person who loves a challenge that's what got me hooked!

Legs
xxxx

[howdee]

Evening All

I got interested and started my research in 1983. A friend of mine had researched his family tree and that got me started. The interest that inspired me to want to know, was a picture of my grandmother with my father and one of his brothers taked around 1920, also I felt a real pull toward my grandfather who was KIA in WW1.

Unfortunately, after a short burst, I kinda drifted away from family history. There was no internet then, it was such a chore finding out one thing at a time etc.

I recently got the bug in a much bigger way, I think having time and a computer makes a huge difference. I haven't been a member of Rootschat very long, I initially found another forum which sadly attracted about 3 or 4 posts a week, people often didn't reply or say thanks, a pretty depressing place to be. Then suddenly "enlightenment" I found Rootschatters. A brilliant bunch, it's so great not to be on your own and to share the pleasure we all get from a breakthrough. I could go on but don't want to be too boring. Thanks.

I will be posting a nice little puzzle soon that we can all enjoy "hopefull" My last one was fantastically successful.

Regards

Howard

[littleclaire]

My Mum's cousin and my Dad's cousin had both done a lot of research and got me started. My Mum wanted to know but didn't have the patience, so she paid for my initial subscriptions to GR and ancestry and then it very quickly became an obsession! Unfortunately the only member of my family who is really interested is my Mum, but I still to talk about it too much to everybody else.....
We've discovered part of both sides of the family came from towns 20 miles apart in Yorkshire. My parents want to retire to Yorkshire because it has always felt like home....... Perhaps they somehow knew they were from there.... I don't think it will ever stop being an obsession. I'm discovering new ways of finding information every week.
Claire