A choice?

[Gwylan]

I have a week at the end of February when I will be unsupervised.
My choices are
Do nothing and skulk around the house
Take my bike on the train to Swansea and research my family tree. That will oblige me to make contact with relatives I would not recognise.
Train to Dover, take the ferry to Calais and cycle along the coast up to Ostend then train to Liege and research the Belgian bit if my family tree.

Interestingly the ferry, with my bike is cheaper than the train to Swansea.
Also in Belgium pensioners get a really good deal on trains.

 

[ianrauk]

An out of the UK trip everytime.

 

[I like Skol]

No comment on your trip, but I've never understood this thing about researching the family tree.

You haven't got the family fortune, you're not entitled to any of it and it makes chuff all difference if your great, great, great, great grand daddy was a king, a peasant or a triple murdering bigamist! I'm sure there are better things to do with your spare time and resources?

 

[Profpointy]

Mmm, why on earth would you go to Belgium? Oh, hang on ...

In the interests of full disclosure, the Westvleteren pic was in Portishead, but the point still stands

 

[berty bassett]

No comment on your trip, but I've never understood this thing about researching the family tree.

You haven't got the family fortune, you're not entitled to any of it and it makes chuff all difference if your great, great, great, great grand daddy was a king, a peasant or a triple murdering bigamist! I'm sure there are better things to do with your spare time and resources?

Wow ! Do you really think like that ?
No interest in where your ancestors come from or what they went through ?
We all think differently I suppose , some think the idea of getting up early , going for a bike ride and arriving back where you started is pointless as well !
Personally my sister has traced family tree back to the 1400s and I have found it intriguing to read of their lives , found out about a murder and a hanging , a time when there was 8 adults and 9 kids living in a 2 up 2 down house - ok I am not in line to the throne and just from a long line of farm hands , but there has been a lot of hardship by a lot of relatives to get me here and I’ve found in very interesting
So in answer to what to do , I would say get abroad and enjoy yourself

 

[Mburton1993]

The Belgium trip sounds best out the three with skulking around the house a close second.

 

[Slick]

I suppose you could go to Belgium and skulk around the hotel.

 

[Slick]

Wow ! Do you really think like that ?
No interest in where your ancestors come from or what they went through ?
We all think differently I suppose , some think the idea of getting up early , going for a bike ride and arriving back where you started is pointless as well !
Personally my sister has traced family tree back to the 1400s and I have found it intriguing to read of their lives , found out about a murder and a hanging , a time when there was 8 adults and 9 kids living in a 2 up 2 down house - ok I am not in line to the throne and just from a long line of farm hands , but there has been a lot of hardship by a lot of relatives to get me here and I’ve found in very interesting
So in answer to what to do , I would say get abroad and enjoy yourself

I'm not particularly interested, but Mrs Slick loves it and I just use it as an excuse to visit interesting places.

As you say, we are all different.

 

[Slick]

An out of the UK trip everytime.

This for me.

 

[matticus]

Just remember that weather in Feb/March over there is much the same as here (or Wales!). Possibly a bit colder on average!

Also in Belgium pensioners get a really good deal on trains.

aha, now that might swing it - if you like spending rainy days looking out of a train window. Could be nicer than the same week in Wales

 

[presta]

Wow ! Do you really think like that ?
No interest in where your ancestors come from or what they went through ?
We all think differently I suppose , some think the idea of getting up early , going for a bike ride and arriving back where you started is pointless as well !
Personally my sister has traced family tree back to the 1400s and I have found it intriguing to read of their lives , found out about a murder and a hanging , a time when there was 8 adults and 9 kids living in a 2 up 2 down house - ok I am not in line to the throne and just from a long line of farm hands , but there has been a lot of hardship by a lot of relatives to get me here and I’ve found in very interesting
So in answer to what to do , I would say get abroad and enjoy yourself

When my father was older, he did a bit of digging into the family tree, but I wasn't much interested. When he died, my cousin asked if she could have a copy of it for her brother who was into genealogy too, so I said she could have it all, as I didn't want it.

"You will do, one day", she said, "I'll make sure he looks after it for you".

She died last year, her brother may be dead now too for all I know, and she was right, I would quite like to see it now.

 

[I like Skol]

Wow ! Do you really think like that ?

Pretty much, yes.

My father died two years ago and there was plenty of old photographs and family history paperwork going back a couple of generations to my great great grandparents. Quite interesting, in a sad nostalgic kind of way that followed the death and the funeral, and it was nice to look back at those few generations that were relatively recent. The one that was most engaging for me was my grandad on my fathers side because he was local and in my life as I grew up so I knew him until he died around the time I was 20. Pictures of him as a young man in the pre-war period and just afterwards showed that I had a strikingly similar appearance, more so than the similarities between me and my father.
There was also some pictures and history of his parents and the generation before that (great great grandparents) which was mildly interesting but as I never knew them personally or had any emotional link to them I did not feel any great attachment or desire to find out more.

I might not be typical, I'm not saying I am, but I really can't see the point in trawling back centuries to find miniscule links to long dead ancestors who may or may not have been notable for reasons good or bad all that time ago. History as a whole is important in general terms, but now and the future are what we should be looking at, without forgetting lessons we* have learn 't in the past.

*As a race

 

[Domus]

Has Senior Management not left you a long list of jobs?

 

[Drago]

Mmm, why on earth would you go to Belgium? Oh, hang on ...

View attachment 721662

To buy a new shirt?

 

[Slick]

Has Senior Management not left you a long list of jobs?

This is coming straight from corporate.