Genealogy Chat

My Father is in his 80s and as his Mother died when he was 4 years old he has little or no recollection of any Family history. He is fortunate to have 3 older siblings still living and I went to see one of them yesterday, purely to show him what I had found, I had no thoughts of gaining anything from it. Boy was I wrong. I now have a photograph of my Grandmother and one of my Gt Grandparents who until then were just names on a Family Tree. The anecdotes he told me were priceless! My tip? Try anything and take a tape recorder along, I wish that I had.

Hello Sue, I agree 100 per cent. I started this 2 years ago with a couple of names but that was all. I now have photos of the family dating back to late 1800s and have met some lovely people. Happy hunting. Pam.

I couldn't agree more. I got in touch with a hotmatch recently who was related by marriage to one of my ancestors from about 1800 not very promissing you might think. However he was able to send me scans of minatures of my great great grandmother and her father from 18th century so I now know what they look like, and a photo of another relative from about 1880 whose son was their family doctor. This morning when I opened my E.mail I found transcripts of some letters from a distant relative who was a missionary in china discussing her problems learning chinese in 19th century and full of titbits like I am glad Ethel has broken off her engagement. I never thought family history could be so exciting.

It is addictive. I can sit here for hours and find nothing but it never seems like a waste of time. I'm just so happy to know what some of these people looked like, my Husband's first reaction was 'Oh My God, you look just like your Grandad'.....and I do!!! Scarily like him.

About two years ago I made contact with a distant cousin who was 92. She had never heard of me and I had only vaguely heard of her before. We drove for four hours each way to go and see her.....I wondered if it would be worth while??? She was lovely! And apart from telling me lots of things about her part of the family, she was able to identify photos of my gg-grandparents (her grandparents) that I had taken with me, hopeing she would know who they were. She even had her own copies of the same pictures! Sadly, through a contact on this site, I learned that a couple of months after I last spoke to my cousin she sadly passed away. She was the last link back to the earlier generations on this part of my tree.......I feel privileged to have met her...... R.I.P. Marion Merry

I know what you mean Merry. I really enjoyed talking to him and he knew so many of the 'little' things about the family. I was a bit worried about how he would take the fact that there was no Father on his Mother's birth certificate, but he already knew so that was okay.

I started my family tree several years ago, but couldnt get any further than about 5names including my immediate family, well since about january this year having finally made contact with someone with my nans surname my tree has come alive, I now have 100 odd names on my tree, am in contact with 4 distant cousins, and have these past two weeks been in contact with a 3rd cousin and find out she lives where I lived, her father lived where my mum and her family lived and have just found out she works with an old friend from when I lived at home with my mum, I have been married 34yrs this year. how weird is that. jean