Genealogy Chat

A learning curve in more than 1 way

The first certificate I found for my great grandfather brought tears to my eyes as he had signed his X Mark. It was in the 1880's and he was a miner living in a Glasgow tenement. Subsequent generations including his children all had an excellent basic education and post WW2 have had the opportunity to go to college and university. How he would have enjoyed the books and newspapers we all take for granted. He would have been just as clever as the rest of us given a decent education. Makes you think....

i was also intrested in history , i started my family history back in the 80s i used to go down to holborn to lookthrough the books i found my grandfathers and my g/grandfathers marriage certs but at the end of the day my feet were killing me because there was no where to sit ,but then i didn't do anymore ,manly because i didn't have the money for fares and certs but the end of last year my hubby bought me my comp.now he asks me if i've got time for a cup of coffee or am i too busy poor soul i do neglect him . hazel

I now drive around my home town thinking ' What would they have thought 125 years later if they knew that I would be here doing what I'm doing - Today took Dad to hospital - 125 years ago the same buildings were the workhouse where my great great grandfather was, and now here I'am driving my brand new car, where he once saw so much poverty - I thought I wonder if he's looking down and thinking - Good on you girl, you enjoy what you've got in life, as we had very little or maybe thinking ' there goes one of mine - turned out alright they did! Joanne

Hehe would be great if they taught this in schools instead of history, maybe kids would have more interest getting their family tree to say 1850 and then the teachers saying ok this is what happened in 1850

One really big thing I have got out of this hobby. My dad and me are very close, but he is not a 'feelings' man. We rarely have a canversation, when I call he passes me to my mum, its like he has no clue what to say to me, or I to him. But since starting this he has called me several times, we have talked on the phone for an age talking about relatives and graves. He is really into it and loves every new fact I can tell him, so that is my biggest gain from starting this

SNAP Gerri, I too was born in Watford, Herts! In the Maternity Hosp in King Street. We lived in Bushey. I have to agree with you all, in that this hobby certainly makes you appreciate the life we have and the hardships our rellies had. I, too, when reading a book or watching a period drama on TV, try to work out which of my rellies was alive then, and would they have dressed like that, spoken in that way etc. I wonder if g.grandad or g.g.great auntie was around when this or that was invented. I wonder what war was on at the time. It certainly gives me food for thought and makes me constantly 'google' to find historical facts, something which I wouldn't have done otherwise. I have looked up, read about, and visited various towns, villages and counties of England which I may never have bothered visiting before. I love looking at old maps of the areas my rellies came from, trying to envisage what it was like in their day. It is a fascinating hobby. I find it so hard to understand why the rest of my (immediate) family have no interest whatsoever and audibly groan when I tell them of a new discovery. I live in hope that one day one of them will take an interest and actually WANT to know something!!!!

bought a lump to my throat alter!

Ive found it very good for humility. As your tree gets bigger and you see what other people put up with or achieved it puts your own life in perspective. we are born we live we die and the process rolls on same things just done in different ways I think of a Mary ann carey who has had 15 children and died aged 45,buried unmarked down the road from me. I think of Joseph Davies who fought in the Boer War,fathered 21 children,lived through WW1 and WW2 ,and his youngest son that he fathered at the age of 62 still lives,just down the road. I think of my Great Uncle jack who at the age of 17 went to sea in 1937 and went to live in Australia,a brave move,all on his own. I think of the Tudsbury brothers working away at an oak carved cabinet in the 1800's that is now in my back room,and the other brother Walter painting away in Sherwood Forest and the work from over 100 years ago hanging in the hall. I go back to the Common wealth war graves Site now and again just to see my great grandfathers death record in 1917,buried in Gaza,aged 38,to make sure he is still there,after reading his letters in the same year to his wife beatrice whilst in the military Hospital.I think of the bridge where he last turned back to wave to her as he set off to a war that he wasnt equipped for- he was a late draft aged 37 and a draper. I look at the death record on the same site of a great uncle who died as a seargeant in WW1 aged 27- he had got married a year earlier,and his wife lillian died 6 months after he died in Gallipoli,aged 25. A very humbling project.

So true muchael, so very very true. A relly of mine was a telegraph lab born in 1856. He fell from a pole and died a few years later from these injuries (not sure how or what they were) but I had to look on the net to make sure phones were around then, had no clue. And when another relly was born in 1880, the newspaper headline was to do with the invention of the light bulb...you know the light bulb, the things we buy for pennies and dont even think about!

I've done it the other way round: looking at rellies' dates and thinking where they fitted in with history, rather than where history fitted in with them. I was looking at a baptism on the IGI dated 14th August 1789, when I suddenly twigged that that was a month after the Bastille was stormed. I'm also going the opposite way to most people in that in this family it's the 20 year old who's been going out and doing the research and attempting, with varying degrees of success, to interest older family members in my findings. My answer has to be a resounding YES. Apparently Jeremy Clarkson, when asked if he would like to appear on WDYTYA, replied 'Why? My ancestors are too boring.' It doesn't take very long once you've started researching to realise that NO-ONE has boring ancestors. Not everyone has kings, presidents or would-be hangman assassins in their tree, but every humble ag lab or domestic servant has a story to tell - in most cases lots of stories!

Oh i know Angela, lol I could have worded that better lol Some really great stories here glad im not the olny one haha When I am really searching hard for someone (this is where i do get weird) I talk to them....Is this you? Come on give me a clue!!! And if I find a funny name I laugh out loud...then apologise...out loud..... And when on the bus back from wherever I have been on shopping day or something I spot graveyards ive not noticed before, I am looking around like mad to see a road name before the bus gets too far away from it!

Sticky - We are real life people!!!

This 'hobby' has changed my outlook....I ve found relatives out here in Oz (I was London born) and I find myself watching old film footage of ww1 thinking 'I wonder if thats you' (talking to Ggrandfather). Ive always had a thing for history - I was a member of the Sealed Knot (re-enacted battles of the English Civil War for charity) and know now it didnt end in 1649 - it ended 4 years before so and so was born!!! Everything is now measured against the family timeline.

Although I have a number of years to go before retirement,I am actually looking forward to being to spend as much time as I wouldlike browsing and gathering for my tree and have a little bit of time left over to help / start other people off who look longingly at my humble tree. J

Yes, it certainly has changed my outlook on life!! Before I started researching my family history I had no idea at all where my family were from. I didn't even know the name of my dad's parents. Now I know that my ancestors came from all over the UK and there is nothing that I like better than a good churchyard. I have always been interested in how ordinary people lived in the past so it is fascinating to be able to relate this to your own ancestors. I knew that I must be getting a bit doolally a couple of weeks ago when a friend and I were shopping in Cambridge and we stopped for coffee in a place with a lovely view from the first floor. The only comment that I could make was 'nice churchyard' as I was looking longingly at the gravestones below!!!!

Hi. Although I am only just 41 I seem to have been doing this for years. I was always interested in history at school and can remember grilling my grandparenst at about 15 on their lives, so glad I did!!! Therefore from the time my children were born they have always been dragged around grave yards etc. Now my daughter who is 10 is well into family history and always asking about g,g gran and g,g,g, uncle so and so. At school a while ago they were asked to do a family tree, she asked how far back they wanted her to go !!!! Even my 7 years old son has now strted taking interest and they know that if they get me started I wont shut up. Everytime a cert comes they now ask who its for and where that person fits into the tree. I just hope that by the time they are older they wont be fed up to the back teeth with it and that they will want to carry on. Nicky

I really hate it when I find someone that was a bit of a challenge and I have no one to tell!! I can come here and tell you guys I know, but I mean like my kids and real life friends

When my husband died I was devastated then someone told me to get a hobby or something to take my mind off it and 3 months later I started this and never looked back. I cant explain the effect it had on me and I almost felt guilty that my husband wasnt permanently on my mind. It does change your outlook on life and as Sticky Fingers says it makes you really appreciate the life we have today. I am 65 and cant think of a better or more rewarding hobby for when you retire than this. Ann

For every birthday/xmas/Christening/wedding gift I give to a family member, I add a printed summery of OUR family tree. They always 'make the right noises' but I live in hope that when I'm gorn!......some kind soul will take it on!.... If they dont......I'll come back and haunt them!!!! lol (told em that too!) Geraldine (15/04/1949) bWatford, Herts. Canadian father, Albert Gerald Stevens. English Mother, Edith May Ford. bWalsall. Gerri who was a 'result' of the war....WW2 that is! not the Crimeon!!!! as some would have it. LOL