What was it that aroused your interest into your predecessors??

[Brickwall Demolisher]

What did start your interest into wanting to discover about your family's history?
Was it that with the computer that you have paid ( ££££??) for, you would just try and see how far back you would get to?
Did your offspring get your interest into it whilst they had a school project on the subject, and yank you out of the regular being in a couch potato position?
What amount of information / records did you have to get you started and were other family members, willing to assist you??
What past happenings in you family would you have not liked to have been reminded of,?
Would the opening up of your families past cause it to be making other family members some concern?
Depending on how far back you have gone, would it be a concern to yourself and family, if you had come across a find that was not a pleasant finding?
Now that you have found the happening/s, how do you start to bring your research to an end, if other family members had not wanted you to continue?
Would you be prepared to let your families findings be brought into being a discussion forum openly?
We possibly all have some skeletons in the cupboards, and that we would like not to be reminded of?
Possibly, one major question to ask ourselves, do you now have doubts on why / what reason for starting you to expand your interest in your own family's history?

[KGarrad]

I started before the advent of Personal Computers and the Interweb

Both my grandfather's had died before I was born, so I knew next to nothing about my family.
Having an unusual surname, I wanted to know where we came from.

Cue lots of research at Bristol Central Reference Library, using microfilm and microfiche

Along the way I have "met" (online) other members of my family, and have shared information with them.

I can't change history - "unsavoury" findings are part and parcel of my ancestors. They lived in different times.
E.G. my 4th G Grandfather won a Silver Cup for hare-coursing?!

[Mike in Cumbria]

E.G. my 4th G Grandfather won a Silver Cup for hare-coursing?!

Blimey, he must have been a fast runner.

[Pheno]

I started before the advent of Personal Computers and the Interweb

Ditto!

In my case my mum's mum used to stay with us for a fortnight each year and whilst here would always talk about people she knew back in the little village in Essex where she grew up (until sent to London in service age 14).  I started writing it all down to see if I could link up all the people she was mentioning and obviously those that were related to her were related to me so it went from there!

She was one of 4 sisters but only 3 lived here one had gone to Australia.  With a bit of delving I discovered that she had been sent there as her husband was having children both with her and with one of her sisters (not my granny) so she, husband and children were banished abroad with no further communication- a very unsavoury event.  However I persevered and found family descendants and rekindled the communication both with them and with descendants of the other offspring who had remained here with their single mother. 

All now keep in touch and have made intercontinental visits so a good outcome.

Pheno

[Viktoria]

Both parents told lots of stories about their families,sad and funny.
I had lived as an evacuee with my paternal grandmother’s family.
I loved the place and felt really sorry that she went to Manchester as a maidservant and married and died aged only 50.
To leave such a lovely area for one of the worst areas of M/c really got to me.
If only Imhsd known what I later found out but was only three and a half when I went.
There would be people still alive who had known her and perhaps had photographs.
My Mum’s family were so interesting ,married at 19 they stayed together through thick and thin,she died aged 66 after twelve babies in 25 years.
1885 to 1910
Then the silly beggar adopted another  four!.

So many stories.I did not meet either of them sadly but felt I knew them in a way.All the tragedies ,babies and children’s deaths .
So poor but my mother’s mother especially must have been a wonderful woman.
When expecting yet another baby a neighbour commented, Grandma’s answer was :-“ all my children are born out of love and every one is welcome”
I do wish I had met them both .
Viktoria.

[Wendy2305]

My mum started our family tree when I was born to many years ago Through her parents and their siblings she was able to go back to 1840's and the birth of her  gt grandparents and able to visit the family graves of others
Of course there were plenty gaps and questions which I was roped into find answers to when I had my daughter and I have continued from there adding my dads and then my daughters families as well

[Creasegirl]

When my uncle died who was my mums brother I inherited all the boxes of old family photos and certificates so that started me off.
 I was particularly interested in finding out more about the valet side of the family and their huguenot connections which have led me so far to lausanne but haven't been able to connect them to the valets who lived in Spitalfields.
 I really enjoy the historical side of family history about how people lived,  what their jobs were like and why they moved around.
I have also done a lot of work on my husbands side of the family as well.

[IgorStrav]

My family were always telling stories about events in their lives, and so we were encouraged to be interested in history.

When the 1901 Census was released, and was available on the internet, I was interested to find out where my Gran (my father's mother) had lived (my mother's mother had lived with us so I knew more about her), and so I looked up the 1901 census.

And I discovered that she had been with her family in Greenwich - not an area of London I know at all - very close to where we'd been driving past almost weekly, taking the kids to music classes at Trinity College of Music.  It was very strange to think that we'd been walking around, all unknowing, in the area where she'd grown up.

And I discovered more recently that my greatx2 grandmother died and was buried in Islington, London,  This is another place on one of our routes through London, and though I've never lived there, or even close to there, I've always liked it.  Which makes me wonder whether I 'knew' she was there.

[Greensleeves]

My favourite uncle had spent years - pre-internet - travelling around Suffolk inspecting parish records in churches and using the information to create a family tree.  About 20 years ago he passed copies of his research to me so that I could carry on with it after he had gone, and  I'm carrying on his work as best I can.  Of course, I have it easy as I have the internet, whereas he spent years doing it the hard way.  Despite that, I still can't get our  Pearle family any further back than John Pearle, Yeoman, Rattlesden, born 1541, died Rattlesden 1638.    So 20 years later, whilst I've taken the tree outwards considerably, I've not taken it any further back (other than having looked at speculative Anc* trees which can't be validated).