It's never too late until it is!

[diplodicus]

My mother died when I was eleven and my father made granite looked chatty. I could never find anyone other than family with whom to have an adult conversation about my mother. There was one person, a friend with whom my mother completed her nursing training. I knew her as "Aunty Iris" and I knew her surname and her address in Battersea. Apart from that, I had no idea how to contact her and didn't really try that hard.

The other week, I searched on the address and lo and behold, Eirys Pattinson duly appeared!

Eirys died a few years ago aged 103 years. For years she was there, with all the knowledge I sought..  but not hard enough.

Don't leave it until tomorrow. Do it today. Try harder.

[Kiltpin]

Don't leave it until tomorrow. Do it today. Try harder.

How I wish someone had said this to me 10 years ago, when all my aunts and uncles were still alive.

Regards

Chas

[Viktoria]

Oh how many times do we say that,!
I missed contacting someone ,my cousin but much older than me,who would in all probability have photographs of long dead members of my Mum’s family.Two lovely girls who died very young from T.B.and an older sister who died from cancer.My Mum’s family were almost all born before the turn of the century so 1800s,but there were photographs .
When his mother, my Mum’s oldest sister died he destroyed all the photographs she had and she was the eldest of the family, and mementos probably because his father,poor man took his own life after
serving in WWI,the family had a very hard life as you can understand,pre benefit days.
How many times did I mean to contact him,then he too died very suddenly.
Nothing to do now but my Mum,’s family were of two types,tall and very slender like Grandad and short and plump like  Grandma.
I wonder which type those girls were .
When Mum was still. alive and told us lots of stories about her large family
 I never thought to ask what they looked like,and she never said .
Yes we do regret so much but still by recording their details we are keeping their memory alive so I can understand your sadness and regret as you were not able to do that.
Nothing to do now,and I can empathise.
                                            Viktoria.

[Gillg]

I'd love to have known where the red hair of my mother and her sister came from.  I've been told that it "jumps" a generation and in this case it's true, as my mother's sister's granddaughter has inherited it, though both my cousin and I are fair haired.  We have Scottish ancestry on one side of the family.  Why oh why didn't I ask my mother while she was still alive?

On my tree I now record physical details of the family members I have known - colour of eyes and hair, height, etc.  I hope this information will be helpful to future generations. 

[Mart 'n' Al]

Before I get on to my actual comment, does anybody have any theories or explanations for this "jumping a generation" business? Everybody's heard it and I've never read any explanation for it even though I've read a lot about genetic genealogy recently.  As DNA gets watered down from grandparents via parents to children, it almost seems unlikely. Anyway...

At the age of 60 I think how sad it is that no younger nieces and nephews seem interested in their ancestry. I almost think it would be more fruitful to get children really interested in their own heritage of the last 100, 150 or 200 years than in battles from 1000 years ago. The trouble is families seem to have become so varied and ruptured these days that it would be a nightmare of political correctness for any teacher.

We, now, here, all realise that we lost a potential major source of research by not asking our parents and their siblings, although I realise people were a lot less open in days gone by. I know more about my Victorian ancestors than my parents knew about their own parents, but I know my parents and their siblings could have helped fill in a lot of gaps.

Martin

[Finley 1]

My Grandads War / Army records gave me wonderful clues to him - that nobody else could.

The reason he always wore gloves --  the army record shows his hands were tatooed -
seemingly by himself..  Or a friend.

MY own father never told me he had a scar on his buttock -- but his naval records do.

So we CAN find info -- if we search hard.

xin

[pharmaT]

Before I get on to my actual comment, does anybody have any theories or explanations for this "jumping a generation" business? Everybody's heard it and I've never read any explanation for it even though I've read a lot about genetic genealogy recently.  As DNA gets watered down from grandparents via parents to children, it almost seems unlikely. Anyway...

At the age of 60 I think how sad it is that no younger nieces and nephews seem interested in their ancestry. I almost think it would be more fruitful to get children really interested in their own heritage of the last 100, 150 or 200 years than in battles from 1000 years ago. The trouble is families seem to have become so varied and ruptured these days that it would be a nightmare of political correctness for any teacher.

We, now, here, all realise that we lost a potential major source of research by not asking our parents and their siblings, although I realise people were a lot less open in days gone by. I know more about my Victorian ancestors than my parents knew about their own parents, but I know my parents and their siblings could have helped fill in a lot of gaps.

Martin

Skipping a generation occurs due to recessive genes.  In the case of genes recessive means that the gene's effects will be masked by a dominant one.  All of our genes come in pairs (ignoring sex chromosomes which are a little more complicated) so to have a trait that is coded for by a recessive gene you have to have 2 copies of the recessive gene.  If someone inherits say one gene for red hair from a redheaded parent they won't have red hair but could have red headed children if they have a child with someone who also carries the red hair gene.  Traits can jump more than one generation.

[Gillg]

My father always hoped for a little red-headed daughter, because it was my mother's red hair that he first fell in love with.  Looks like I don't need to feel guilty that my hair was just fair and that it was probably because of his dominant genes that I ended up with hair like his and not like Mum's. 

Thanks for the explanation, pharmaT