What started you off ...

[piedstilt]

... on the mad and wonderful pursuit of your ancestors?

I'm wondering what turns normal people into passionate genealogists - a thought sparked by meeting a librarian from our central city library at a social occasion the other day, who turned quite pale when she discovered I was one of THEM!

In my case my elderly father knew little about his family but we knew vaguely where they used to live and decided to take a trip to Invercargill (southern tip of NZ) - mostly because I'd never been there before. On the way down my husband had the bright idea of putting an ad in the personal column of the local newspaper saying 'Desperately seeking Henrys ...' and we added the few facts we knew.

By the time we had spent a day trolling around a huge cemetery, met wonderfully helpful people - and discovered the grave of my gg-grandfather, born Campbeltown, Scotland in 1821 - I was totally hooked.

The icing on the cake was a contact from an elderly woman, whose sister had seen our ad, who subsequently sent me a whole lot of information plus a wonderful photograph of my grandfather's whole family outside their rough pioneer's house in 1881.

I went home and got straight on the internet - and I'm still there, hundreds of my and other people's ancestors later!

My deepest regret is that I didn't do it all before my father died (aged 98). He would have been fascinated.

Ros

[Paul E]

Just last October I had a spell off work (depression).  It was not a good time, and I wanted something to focus my mind.  My mother had been passed a small family bible which had some unusual names in it that didn't seem to ring any bells.
Earlier that year I had attended my grandma's 100th birthday party, and I guess seeing so many people there from different branches of her family also proved intriguing.

I started off on the LDS site and Genes Reunited, and then discovered Rootschat. 

Discovering this new hobby proved to be a great 'lift' and helped re-organise my mind in preparation for the inevitable return to work.

cheers

Paul

[piedstilt]

Hi Paul,

I do hope that you have been able to pin down just which of those runners-up was yours! Love that photo - I laugh every time I see it.

I'm dying to put up the photo I was given, but I'm finding it too hard. Nothing seems to happen when I follow all the instructions. Ignore, this is not a cry for help - I'll work it out one day.

It was very artistically posed with lots of little girls (wearing identical clothes) scattered artfully over the bare bare bare ground, oldest sister standing sideways to show off her bustle and - best of all - the cow in the far left corner was captioned Blossom. It made them all seem real! Don't imagine anyone in England could come up with a scene like it for the time.

Interesting to see your route to RootsChat. Have to say that I am devoted to Ancestry.com. I couldn't live without those censuses and only arrived here through googling.

Haven't actually advanced any of my causes (hopelessly obscure ancestors), but loving sharing the passion with like-minded people.

Cheers,

Ros

[Rebecca Steele]

What started me off was when a long lost cousin contacted my mum wanting to know more of the families history ...... and since there is a great mystery about who my Nans parents were (my mums mum), I decided to try and solve the great secret! (Which is proving to be a very difficult one to solve!)

Like piedstilt said, I wish I'd started looking earlier before my Nan died.  As she always wanted to know the truth.

Then my mum said 'I think my dads side would be easier to trace' so I went off on a tangent tracing the Morgans too, and have possibly got back to 1722! Just need to get the time to go to Worcester Record Office!

As I had no idea where to start, I started off with Ancestry and then a few months later just happened to stumble across Rootschat while googleing, and have been hooked ever since!

Paul, I'm glad to hear you're feeling better now 

[janan]

I'd had some copies of certificates and also info copied from a family bible by my paternal great grandfather for many years, but hadn't followed them up. Then one day I was googling and stumbled across John Palmer's fantastic  Wirksworth, Derbyshire  site, where said ggrandfather and his ancestors came from - and that was that  Jan

[ysabeau]

                               Mitochondrial DNA

[Boongie Pam]

I think my first thoughts to doing a family tree where about 20 odd years ago when my grandad (John Fallon) kept getting mail from America asking him if he was related to "So and So Fallon" of Liverpool who sailed to America in 1478.

We always replied to say sorry but our Fallon's were from Scotland.  It got me thinking more about them but my grandparents were very uncommunicative.  Now they are deceased it was difficult to get started with just 2 names but heyho that's the fun.

It's a sad fact, I think, that my grandpa never encouraged me earlier he would have loved finding the info about our ship owning ancestors, but he was ashamed by the illegitamacies or at least his parents were therefore the older generations were lost to him.  

This is why my website is based around him - I think he lost out.

The actually doing the tree, rather than thinking about it, came from teh release of the 1901 census online.

Pam
 

[Llwyd]

My cousin,who died sudenly and unexpectedly,had stated her intention of "doing the family history". Her sister, thereafter, decided I should inherit her computer.
I had no real intention of compiling the famil history, but one day I had a look at the LDS web site and the 1881 census...........the rest as they say.................

[Sylviaann]

My sister in New Zealand sent me a copy of the tree of one line of our family.  It had been compiled by a professional who was researching for one of our second cousins.

At that time I was taking astrology classes and my chart said I would receive news from abroad and was entering the section of my chart which was about family.

My husband had died that year and I needed a hobby.  I saw some family history classes were available at night school so I joined.  This was in 1989 and I've been "at it" ever since.  This was before the internet so I went to the LDS every week for about five years and managed to trace all my family back to 1837 and some to well before that. 

I now have two 10ft shelves full of information and books

I really can't remember how I found Rootschat but I think it was recommended by someone on Genforum or I may have seen it in a magazine.  I only know I am having great difficulty in finding time to update my files in order to send them out in book form to various relatives who may or may not be interested

Sylviaann