Family History thread

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This is something I don't have any interest in. My sister in Aus has done some research into it but I genuinely don't give a rat's arse who or where I descended from. Oddly enough, my wife is the same way... and her family history has been traced (by her cousin) to late 1800s France and South Africa, to Mauritius in the early 1900s... but she is relatively (ho ho) unmoved by it all.

I think for me it's not so much the ancestry, as a story about a bunch of people - they just happen to be related to me. I suspect I could could just as wrapped up tracing a bunch of complete strangers, if the story was good.

Mum and I did an evening class some years back on family history, and did a bit of tracing - she did her side, I did my late Dads. I got back to the point where BMD stops, early 1800's. One day, I'll maybe pick it all up again and do some more. Mum got back part way, and then came up against something that didn't tally with what my (then alive) gran had always thought, and that sort of stopped her - she felt my gran might have been upset to discover that something she'd always been told didn't seem to be true (no great difference, but something that might have suggested a vague scandal at the time). Mum's got so many other interests now, I don't know if she'll go back to it.

My best fact is that a great grandfather owned a confectioner and bakers shop in Salisbury, in Penny Farthing Street. So my interest in cakes and bikes is hereditary....

 

[peanut]

the thing that surprised me was how alike I am to my ancestors . I never knew my Dad for instance as he was always at work when i was a kid. Sometimes heard him at night when he would hammer and saw long into the night. Him and Gramps were builders on the side and both worked in the docks.
Anyway at 11 i went to a boarding school and never saw much of my Father as My Mum left him when I was 16. So how did I pick up so many of his manerisms and his personality ? People have said I even cough like him .

Genetics is a big part of who we are and I can see myself in so many of my ancestors

 

[Mr Pig]

On the one hand, I think it would be quite interesting to know where you came from. But now that I think about it, my sister did a lot or research into it years ago and I've never bothered to ask her about it! So I guess I don't give a s*** after all :0)

 

[meenaghman]

There are a number of things which for me are quite interesting
1. to actually get all the names, dates, facts and figures so to speak.. eg I traced my wifes family back to big Ulster Linen Factory owners, but further tracing showed they'd come from St Helens and moved over to Belfast.
2. The various family stories of your direct descendants but also of different scions of the family who emigrated also.. Some tragic eg brothers serving together and dieing in the trenches.. Splits in families over partition in Ireland and subsequent involvement in IRA campaigns/politics/Spanish Civil war.. Socialist leader in NE England who many said would have been an MP but he died from TB.. to simple stories about families who baked bread for other families who had lost their mother.
3. Learning about the people history of a place.. eg a pit village in NE England where the families of 7 international football players lived on the same street..
I reckon its what you're into. I think there's a rich living history still available to us. In Ireland the last generation totally tied to the land is now starting to die out. I just think that its incumbent on us in later generations to record some of their history and their oral stories to ensure they don't get lost. As television and other entertainment becomes the norm, the art of story telling, and listening is dieing out.

 

[Saddle bum]

I found several distant cousins and we formed a team to increase our resources. Works very well.

Searching out your FH can eat up the rest of your life and leave you no time to ride a bike. Restrict your researches to the night time hours only.