General Chat

I started a while before '1837online' and had several trips to London FRC to go through the indexes and order certs. I loved my trips and found out a major item of interest (i.e. Grandfather's surname was not what we thought it was!) fairly quickly and this made me even more enthusiastic. Some branches of my tree have been easier to research than others bit I find it all fascinating.

Gwynne No it has not lost its charm for me. I actually marvel at how clever it is that i can find so much information on the internet. But I also enjoy the thrill of trawling through parish records and finding an elusive name. even though it is not easy to get to most of the ROs that I need to. I still have several 'brick walls' I would love to demolish, I would so love to find the area in France where my Gt grandfather was born and get his birth cert in 1844, I would love to find out why his Father absconded from Derbyshire to France, and how and why his wife and family managed to follow him after leaving the workhouse. I would love to know why that same Gt gt grandfather and wife sent the children back to england alone and what happened to them the parents. Those would be real yessss moments for me, so i am not ready to give up the chase yet. Ann Glos

Hi Gwynne, No it hasn't lost its charm for me yet, I still get so carried away,and forget all about time,especially when I think I have found someone else. If I come up against a brick wall (who hasn't), I leave it for awhile and forget about it,and carry on with something else. I too used to go to Record Offices,long before the days of the internet,must admit I did like looking through the dusty old registers. Most of the people then seemed older to me,sat at the desks, with their glasses on the end of their noses,engrossed with their searches. If you talked or got the giggles, which I very often did,people used to tut,and give you an icy stare. I must admit,I do miss that way of researching,I would be classed now as one of the oldies,with my glasses on the end of my nose. Trish xx Still happy hunting days for me

Interesting question Gwynne, and I understand what you mean. OH's great aunt did nearly all of his family tree in the 1970s when it was all 'legwork'; even the actual tree was hand-drawn over 12 pages of A4! Looking at her work, we've often thought how thrilling it must have been to trawl through old documents etc. However, for me, I would never have been able to take up this hobby if it hadn't been quite so internet-friendly. Due to my health problem, getting out and about is one thing that's particularly difficult, so finding a really interesting and absorbing hobby online has been a real godsend. I do intend to make full use of the LDS films now that we're near a library though! Mandy :)

Definately NOT easy especially if of Irish descent with a native American thrown in for good luck!! n it's taken me 5 years to get the marriage I just found--more records are accesible yes, but decidedly not easy and some sites are getting very expensive!! Carol

Sitting in a Record Office and turning the pages of the church register of marriages from 1837 to 2004 was one of the highlights of my research ( it is still a small village so the book was still only half full, when it was handed in.) Being able to turn each page, then flick back to check a linked surname gave me a real sense of feeling about my ancestors that online records don't match. I also find it easier to link families when I do this, rather than view their individual records in isolation. This said, I am more than grateful for finding families in census online. Some moved far away from their birthplace and I would never have thought to search eg. Lancashire records for my Gloucestershire-born folk. So I will continue to search online AND in Record Offices, hoping for a few more 'Yes' moments than have happened recently .I can't do without my R.O. 'fix' from time to time. Gwyn

Thanks again to all who answered. It is very much the thrill of the chase but is shooting ducks in a barrel as much fun as a wild duck hunt? I'm still totally addicted but I do think if it was very easy to start with I may have gone off it - my Dad always said I never liked anything too easy. Gwynne

GWYNNE YOU CANT IMAGINE HERE WHEN I DID FIND THE MAN THAT WE HAD SPENT FIVE YEARS EACH SEARCHING FOR..I HAD HAD A MEGA ROW IN THE EVENING WITH OH GOT UP AT 2am,AND TYPED THE WRONG SPELLING FOR SURNAME,,,,,,,,,THIS NAME APEARED,WRONG VILLAGE,, THOUGHT WONDER IF HIS WIFES FAMILY ARE NEAR 179O THERE SHE WAS HARRIS WITH AN EXRA S,ONLY ONE MISS SPELT.2;30am I WAS PHONING ROUND