Genealogy Chat

Any remedy for addiction to family tree reasearch?

Nope !! just go with the flow

i dread to think how much I have spent over the years with subs /certs etc but i still find it fascinating 16 years on and BINGO moments still give a buzz

I am sure when i pop off all my papers and folders will be dumped as none of my immediate family have any interest at all in family history

No, unfortunately the addiction is terminal. Once it has you in it's grips there is nothing to do but keep at it.

When I started about 14 years ago I did no housework, no shopping and certainly no cooking. This site was very much different then and there was loads happening. I would spend up to 9 hours a day on here while hubby and son were at work.

They told everyone they were on the "family history diet" because there was never a meal ready for them when they came home.

As Shirley says, it's still a buzz if I find anything new - even though I am not actively looking for anything these days. If I do send for the odd certificate now, I still can't wait for it to drop through the letterbox.

Just enjoy the ride and don't look for a cure!!

Kath. x

The thing is Catherine, that for all the wonderful finds and successes, there is often at least one person in a tree, who is elusive and leads us on a merry hunt for their origins.

Others have 'selective' memory when it comes to census information and give wrong information about birthplaces of themselves and / or their children and so we just have to keep on searching.............................

...........but it's so interesting sorting fact from fiction.

If you are able to 'walk in their footsteps' and visit ancestral haunts, it makes one feel even more in touch with past generations.

How many times have I sat down at the Computer and said "just ½ hour" Poor dog is still waiting for a walk at lunchtime! Hubby knows where I am when he phones, as my answers are in words of one syllable with a distinct gap before an answer. How dare he interrupt. Even my friends get to do Cemetery walks with me when I go back to my home patch. Like Shirley, I too think my hard work will go bye the bye when I leave this mortal coil.

It's definitely incurable.

And thanks to forums like this, we can even investigate OTHER PEOPLE'S trees!

Other peoples trees always seem more interesting than your own!

Please don't let all your research go to waste when you're gone Shirley and greyghost. Put a great big label near all your stuff saying "Please take to local family history society or library if no one wants it"

Kath. x

My son started ours before he was married and when there was nothing online. After he no longer had the time (wife and baby) OH and I took over. I think son will take our stuff in due course, and hopefully a grandchild will be interested.

I recently went to the Glamorganshire FHS Fair in the hope of breaking down a brick wall. Unfortunately, the brick wall is still very firmly standing :-( but I met someone who lives opposite my great-grandfather's birthplace and has sent me a photo of it, along with quite a lot of other info, so a "wasted trip" wasn't after all. I am now going further back up that line. :-) :-)

It is addictive, but I have at last found a good use for all my research. My grandson has used it as a starter point for a Duke of Edinburgh project and we've had some great times together as I guided him thro it all. My young granddaughter is 'doing' WW1 as her school topic this term, so all my photos, copies of records etc have been received with great excitement to bring it all to life as it were.
So now the family are a little more approving of all the time and money I've spent on it!
Sue

Having followed up a key fact from a trusted source, I sourced the National Census, thereby discovering a host of great aunts, great uncles, great grandparents. It has been a fantastic journey and I now know why I like beer, great grandma was a Beer Maker. :-)

The remedy is to get a complete set of BMD certs for everyone in your tree, including yourself.

I'm not sure there is a cure Catherine. I'm well and truly addicted and have been for the past decade. My trouble is that I keep going off down long 'side roads' and adding names to my tree and coming up with the most unexpected 'relations' (albeit several times removed). But I can say that I am a direct descendant of both Thor and Charlemagne! And I have the pathway on my tree which shows it...

I inherited various odd bits of paper with bits of family trees on them. One, written by my mother simply gave the name of one of her grandfathers, his father, one great uncle and the text 'and 16 other children'! It took me about 4 or 5 years before I found all of them. The fact that they lived in Cork didn't help matters - but the father was OIC Queen Victoria's forces in the South of Ireland and it ended up that there were quite a few references in The Gentlemans' Magazine to his family (marriages, deaths, etc). I even found in the Newspaper archive on GR an advert for the sale of all his household goods when he left Cork and returned to England.

Fascinating stuff. How on earth can one even consider breaking the addiction?! All my references are added into my tree here on GR - both in the Notes section and in the Keepsafe. Very little is on paper - apart from those original documents.

I sit here in the evenings with my laptop on my lap while my wife is either doing Sudokus or jig-saws. I sometimes think there's not much difference really.