Genealogy Chat

With all the various sites available you would think the whole country was 'into' researching Family Trees.
My children are only mildly interested and my grandkids couldn't care less(neither did I at their age). I have had a disc made of our Tree and given it to my eldest daughter for safe keeping.
Talking to friends and neighbours it's a good topic of conversation but it becomes clear that not everyone shares your enthusiasm.
What is re-assuring, is the help and advice readily available when you do start researching.

Like you Alan most of my family members are not or appear to be not interested in their family tree. In fact my wife thinks that I am positively mad for spending so much time and effort, "Looking for dead people". Mind you she does have an ulterior motive, she thinks that my time would be much better spent doing the washing up, weeding the garden, doing the shopping ect.

Preserving our efforts for possible use by future generations does present a bit of a problem however. With its current rapid advances, the technology of the media available to us today on which to record our finds may not be available in the future for our descendants to use to decipher our efforts. Only a very few years ago we might have used a reel to reel tape recorder, that was replaced by compact cassette only to be replaced by Cd and more recently by DVD. You now need to visit an antiques shop to find a reel to reel tape recorder or a compact cassette player. Will the same fate befall compact disc and DVD players? The computer program that we bought just a couple of years ago has probably been "Updated" or become obsolete. The computer we use today if it has not already been consigned to the rubbish tip will probably have become a museum piece by 2020.

At the end of the day the only recording media that appears to have survived from very early times to the present day is the written word. Whether created by pen and ink or a printer, provided that its existence is protected, the written word appears to both survive and be capable of being read by others well into the future.

Whilst your effort in having had a disc of your family tree made and given to your daughter for safe keeping is to be applauded I would suggest that giving her a piece of equipment capable of reading the disc might also be a good idea.

good advice as usual Jonesy.

I have just read a book written in 1914 about the small town of Honley in Yorkshire.

The writer opens the book with these words:

‘No greater calamity can happen to nations or persons than to lose all knowledge of their past’.

A statement that I’m sure you will agree is shared by all of us local and family historians in 2011

Happy Christmas to you, Jennifer

As you say, lots of family and friends aren't interested, so I tend to limit how much I talk about genealogy. However, it seems that if you are interested in your family tree, you are interested in others too. Which is why people on here are happy to talk about family history, anyone's, therefore sharing this hobby, and for that I say thank you.

Yes, Dave it occurred to me about technology overtaking todays facility of storage. I cant keep up with Mobile technology now. Maybe I should write on parchment, that lasts for hundreds of years.
I think I've said it before, my wife parks the Dyson near the computer these days !!

Trouble is, once you've done your family tree, there's nothing left for the family to find. Over the years I have printed out copies and pressed them onto younger members, 'just in case'. And odd times other rellies have asked me for info because the children were doing a family project at school.

I was clearing my M i Law house recently and found some 5.25 in floppy discs. Haven't a clue whats on them as noone has a computer to read them.

Andy

I too have been accused by my family of "living in the past".

I love putting this "puzzle" together - only problem, there are no straight edges and it could go on for ever!

My daughter has promised me that she will not throw it all away when I am gone (??) but she has also said that it will be a very long time before she looks at it.

I only became interested in it about 4 years ago - when there is no one left to ask except my Mum!!!

Still, it is an enjoyable hobby to have - I have solved a couple of family mysteries and I enjoy the boards on GR.

grannyfranny says "Once you've done your family tree, there's nothing left for the family to find".

I'm not sure that this is right! My paternal tree was started in the 1860s by my 3 x great grandmother. Her son added to it before his death in 1876. It was next picked up 100 years later by a first cousin of my father. I have been making additions since 2000 and am still finding bits and pieces of information when I least expect to. As further resources become available, with luck my descendants could discover even more detail.

Well of course, that is correct, there's always something to search for. And as the family grows, as mine is doing, there's more to add. And if I get desperate, there's always the in-laws!
We too discovered a family 'saga' written in 1898, and my brother and I intend to add to this.

I don't know that a Tree is ever finished. You may, like me, hit two brick walls and cant research backwards without more detail. My lineage is of Working Class ancestors and pre 1800 detail is hard to come by but I live in hope that someone out there will know something.

My family are not in the least bit interested
I really do not know what will happen to all the certificates etc
they will be thrown away i expect
Margaret

Margaret, you could specify in your will that all your research and certificates went to a local family history society.

Hopefully that is a long way away and by then someone in your family may have got the bug

Happy Christmas, Jennifer

The more people that I meet, the more I find that * are * interested and want to tell me what they have discovered :-)

Hi All
My son is intersted in family and local history,it was him that made a start on all this when we found an original marriage certificate from 1900 after my mum died.
My daughter is not interested but she does love the old family photo I have collected.
I am fortunate that I have a couple of friends who are researching and a couple who are likely to do it in the future The only regret I have is that I had not questioned some elderly relatives before they died.
Have a good Xmas everyone
Best wishes
Norma

My mothers male line is different to mine and my children's is not the same as mine, only the female line mother to daughter is continuous.

Where do you draw the line? I have my own fathers, line Clark also my mothers father Wicker and now my children's father Curtis.

I have my paternal grandmother's line Page and my husbands mother's line Gold but really the only maternal line that affects my daughters is mother to daughter by maiden name and that isn't always possible unless you obtain marriage certificates for all the marriages.

My trees are all printed copies of censuses, birth and marriages, and old photos but it is getting bigger and bigger and I imagine neither daughter will want to keep it when I shuffle off this mortal coil.

My maternal line and their dads paternal line is really all they need but .. but :-D

i have been looking in to my family tree for a few years now, im doing my parents side and my partners side ....for our kids later in life i have found out so much and finding 2 nd cousi9ns again and first cousins that i never knew
i dont spend to long on it other wise my other half moans :(

Personally I couldn´t care less if anybody else is interested.
It´s my hobby & I´m addicted to it.
My brother makes interested noises if I mention it to him, but only because it´s his family too.

I only have one sibling of my Mother's who is still alive. He was a late addition to the family.............what used to be called ........"the change baby".
When I first began researching my line I spoke to him about it and his first words were "Oh. You will discover the family secret then"... It was a secret that I already knew. Something my mother had hinted at all of her life but never actually stated the facts. It is very doubtful if the man I knew as my Grandfather is actually my mother's father. I decided to follow his blood line because I had no other option knowing at least that if it wasn't my lineage I could pass the information on to my Uncle and to my cousins.
Unless I go into DNA testing I will never be certain but the more I researched the more I was certain that the family secret was in fact the truth.
It is one of the many things you discover when you begin this addiction but I also discovered that my children really weren't interested at this stage of their lives.
I have all of the information stored. But not on disc as they decay and become useless after about ten years. I have it all written down in a book and sealed in polythene so that it doesn't deteriorate too much.
I shall pass it on to my family when my time is over and hope that they cherish it.
It is also on Ancestry where it will stay as long as that site remains.

If you have a tree written down and stored,,,,,,,make sure you put acid free paper between each page and then wrapped in acid free paper ,that way the ink wont fade or pages stick together by moisture and make damp proof also..