General Chat

About 14 yrs. always interested, I first went to Somerset House 49 yrs ago with my parents, remember them looking at big red books. I now know they were trying to solve the problems I still have with trying to find the history of my great grandfather, still no joy.

Carol :-S

I can remember eagerly awaiting the release of the 1881 census.

My tree was magnificent. It had 76 names on it. You can put more then those on in an evening now/

There were surnames that got in my way when I was searching our local registers. I now know them to be families of daughters who had married outside the village.

Just over a year, still not quite sure what I am doing, but getting there....with help.

George

Being a first generation kiwi, I always hated not having 'family' around. When school broke up for summer, most kids went to their grandparents etc for Christmas. We didn't have that.

My Mum took my younger sister and I to the UK in 1963 so 'they' met us. We have photographic proof - shame I was too young to remember the trip. My maternal grandfather came to NZ once in the 70's for a week to deliver the jewellery and bits my Mum inherited on her stepmums death.

I had one paternal Uncle who lived in NZ for a time during my early years. He moved to Aus and married but had no children. He is a big part of my life still.

Both my parents lost their Mums at an early age and had 'stepmothers'. Not very successful at mothering by all accounts.....

I found it hard to understand how neither Mum or especially Dad had much contact with their extended families. So the search began, with much help from kindly GR members and dare I say it, hiring a Genealogist, I have some knowledge - but not enough.

My own children have grown up with uncles, aunts and three grandparents - all still alive. They have been so lucky, now we have great nieces and nephews in the fold :-)

I guess it was harder to keep in touch with family members who moved away for work or a new life.

Thank goodness for modern communciations

My tree has lots of bare branches - all welcome ;-)

I started when the 1901 census came out and i had just got Internet. My SIL and i thought we try to look for FIL who was in a children home in Birmingham from an early age. He was born in 1901 although after the census was taken but we got his birth cert and started from there, After getting as far as we could then I decided to look at my family tree,

Only this year with the 1911 coming on board have I at last got Dads info on which home he was and and some dates so its taken 10 years to find him. Didn't help that i found his parents weren't married and on the face of it his father was a bigamist with yet another mistress ie dads mum.

Have got back to the early 1700,s on one side of my family but stuck circa 1889 on my paternal dads side because they were German and info is hard to find .

Only three and a half years doing my tree.

I started as i wanted to know more about the family also i love history and i also wanted to find a living relative. my uncle John who i had never met but sadly i found he had passed away so i never met John.

but its been amazing the things found in are tree's i have twin boys but no one could remember twins in are line or my wifes. But when i got into the 1800's and 1700's there were alot of twins in the family.

I also wanted to looking into my Welsh roots which i have always been very proud of.

Also the friends i have made around the world and indeed i met a couple who i got to know they came over from Austraila and we met up which lovley and his wife was Stirk which is what my great gran was.

Rob

I started searching over 25 years ago after an older family member who had a lot of family knowledge died very suddenly. We realised that our family history knowledge could just disappear. Initially the idea was just to write down what we knew, but then the bug struck, and the thirst for more developed.

It has always interested me how people used to live in the 1700`s, early 1800`s, without all the modern day things, including electricity etc. I have been doing my tree for about 10 years, since just before most things were on the internet. I am now past the stage that comes after 1837 and travel around to various record offices when time and money allows, (it also doubles as a 2 day break). A lot of my branches are now at least as early as 1800, with one or two in the middle 1500`s. Sometimes I wish I didnt know as much as I do now, I enjoyed it so much when you could just look up certificates and find baptisms etc., for people I really knew. It is so much harder now and the writing is so hard to read.

I would love to have a time machine and travel back for a couple of days, so long as I could come back again. My first destination would be Sedbergh, Yorkshire about 1800, so I could ask my ancestor where he was born, lol.
:-D

I started about four years ago, after my nan died and we inherited all her old photos. Her sister came round and told us who they all were, and we all got really confused, so my mum suggested doing a family tree to sort them all out!

Matt

im just being nosey i was wondering how long have you been doing your family history, also why did you start tracing your family?

Ive been tracing my history about 7 or 8 years now and started doing it cos a friend mentioned she was doing her tree the n i started being curious tho it has cost me a forttune in certificates lol.