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
.
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.
I suppose the main big reason for me is I enjoy it.
