Genealogy Chat

I've just seen this on another website by an unknown author which I thought was quite touching. I think I'll remember this when I try to involve my family in my searching! 'We are the chosen. My feeling is that in each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow those who went before know and approve. To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the storytellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called as if it were in our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us; Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told my ancestors, 'You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us.'? How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting the facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference, and saying I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us, that we might be born who we are, that we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us. I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation, to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers. That is why I do my family genealogy, and that is what call those, young and old, to step up and put flesh on the bones.'

Mmm, I do agree that within each family there are 1, maybe 2, members who are very family orientated, and more likely to take on research. In my family its me, no one else could care less!

How beautifully written, this is often an emotional path, but it brings great satisfaction, getting in touch with distant relatives, and knowing that we share a certain thread. I was delighted to talk with relatives who can remember my great grandparents, show me photos of them, and bring them alive for me..

That's nice. Photographs always get me, and stories from other relatives. Like my dad's oldest brother Joseph or his aunty Margaret (Joseph died at 14 months and Margaret at 12) - I have pictures of both of them and it sort of brings it to life. I also have a photo of my dad at about a year old and if I didn't know better I'd have thought it was his brother Joseph. It sort of connects you with it more. Some of the details are so moving - when baby Joseph died, my grandad went to register his death that same day. As Grandad married in his mid-30s and Joseph was the first baby, it must have been horrendous. Two of my mum's cousins (one aged 82, the other in her nineties) have, when asked, said 'Oh, Grandad Branston used to drink, you know' and it's so weird that I (born in 1984) am talking to people who remember a man who was born in 1847. It's a really strange thing to think. They make you wonder, too. My gran was May Queen in 1929 and the following year she crowned the new one. Holding Gran's train is great-grandma, who died of breast cancer almost exactly twelve months on. I often look at that picture and think, 'Did you know you only had a year to live?'. Also, I think it's nice to be able to look at an old picture and say 'this is someone I am related to'. I came across some old prayer books the other day. My mum knew about them - one was her dad's, one was her grandma's and the other was signed 'A. Woodcock' and she said, 'I don't know who A. Woodcock is', so I said, 'Well, you wouldn't, it's Dad's great grandma Anne'. It's fascinating to think that they could write - Anne Woodcock's parents had to put a cross on their wedding certificate. I suppose it's filling out the details that's the fun bit - what they looked like, what faith they were, where they lived. It all builds a big picture up.

What a beautiful piece of writing Kirsty, I am the only one in my family who is tracing the family tree, I am the only one who's living room is full of lovely black and white photos/memories of my family/ancestors, I have lost all of my Grandparents and my Dad. It is me that is trying to find out who I am and where my 'roots' are, who I look like. It is me who is trying to find the 3 halfBrothers that I didn't know about and make contact with them (I found an Aunt and seven cousins through this site that I didn't know about and it was she that told me about my Brothers!!!) I have 303 people in my Tree now and I embrace all of them, I'm sure they would be proud of us, doing this, and passing on valuable Family History, which sometimes sadly gets lost along the way. Keep up the good work everyone!!! Stella

Stella, I sometimes think that. I wonder if my ancestors are somewhere looking down on me saying to each other, 'Why are we so special that she's looking for us? We were just farm labourers and cotton spinners etc.' But to me it is important. Sadly I'm still nowhere nearer solving the next step back of my Hurst line but I live in hope.

Kirsty Such lovely words. I do sometimes wonder why I bother. When I finally find a link that I've been looking for, for ages and get all excited and tell my other half, the grunt that I get goes nowhere near to explaining how I feel inside. I know that when I was younger and my grandmother was all there and able to tell me what she did when she was a small child, I wasn't interested. Too bothered with being a teenager and looking good!!! When I suddently took an interest in what she had to say, unfortunately she was too old and muddled to tell me - so now I spend hours trawling through records!!! The black and white photos that I have on my side of my grandparents and relatives that I have never met are priceless and I thank all those people who have bothered to make records so that I can follow their trail. I have a long way to go, but I'm enjoying every minute of i!! Shirls x

Why do we research our Family History? Well, my parents were from completely different stock and background and I wanted to fill in the missing gaps in my life. Who was my Dad's Dad. Did my Irish Grandparents have any siblings? Being Catholics, on both sides of the family...I felt sure they must have come from big families. Why oh why didn't I ask questions before my Mum died. Dad is still alive but has Alzheimers and all he can remember is his brothers and siblings, just. Dad was the youngest of 8 and from a well to do family in Bristol whilst Mum came from a very poor family in Dublin City and she alway said that Dad had it so easy. There was always food on their table and their shoes had no holes in them! My Irish Grandfather often came home to bread and jam for his tea when Mum was a child! Yet he was the only Grandfather I knew and he was such a lovely warm man. I loved him so much even though I didn't see him that often. I can still hear his voice now. Bless him. I didn't know that I had 3 other Irish aunties until I was about 10 years old. I knew my Mum's youngest sister as she was the only one that Mum was in contact with, as during WW2 Mum left London and her family to come down to the West country to work on the Spitfires and met my Dad. We didn't visit Mum's relations until we had a car in 1958. Yet we used to visit his Mother every Saturday. We would walk down to Avoncliff to catch the train to Bristol and then walk back up through the woods, in the pitch black from Avoncliff Halt back home. So scary! (I have since learnt from my eldest cousin that this was the family tradition that everyone of Grandma's family was to visit at least once a week. Grandfather's law by all accounts. He died long before my parents married so I never knew him) Grandma was a lovely person, I might add and it was good that I was able to visit one grandparent regularly. When I was about 8 yrs old I became aware that Mum was getting letters from New York in the USA, from her Aunt Alice. Was I glad that I remembered that bit of info! She also told me that I inherited my 'twin toes' ( 2 toes joined together up to just below the nail) from her uncle Joe. Uncle Joe who? Why didn't I ask her then? 'Cos I was a child and didn't realise that one day my quest would be to 'Find my Roots'. So anybody that has living relatives, ask questions NOW, before it's too late. 2 years of researching and I have found 498 relatives. Most of them are my Dad's ancestors and relatives. But I do know who Mum's Aunt Alice is now and her Uncle Joe. They are 2 of Mum's Father's 8 siblings!

I have no photos at all of any of my ancestors and only a couple of my mother, my dads moving around and absentmindness misplaced them over the years, (although i had pinched a few of my childhood pictures to show friends)these survived,....a few months ago i saw in a quirky shop a photo of a beautiful little victorian girl with black hair and light eyes on a rocking horse, i paid about £5.00 for it and everyone thinks i'm mad, but she has the pride of place on my wall in a new frame....iv'e adopted her....moe Christine...i think the circumstances of your dad was not because he was from Liverpool but the times he lived in, it was happening all over England...moe