talking about your family history

[dogsbody70]

Originally Posted by GoNative

I've never been even the least bit interested in my family history. I was actually adopted when I was 8 days old and I've also never had the least bit of interest in finding out about my 'birth parents' (never understood why adopted people would want to do this).

ah GN. I take it you were happy in your adoptive home so that is great.

I too was adopted but then sort of DISCARDED LOL ending up with nobody at all.


Many adopted or other people have a yearning to know who they are their family roots. I did actually meet my mother after the war-- lived with her for .just three awfful months-- never saw her again.

But there was a family history class here where my husband already knew quite a lot about his own Family----------


Some of us have a curiosity-- others don't. It has been so much easier since the internet--.

so much general information can be gleaned though especially about local history and the way people lived and worked and as there are so many changes--that in itself is fascinating and often worth knowing for those who have an interest in such things.


The way many convicts from our country were sent to Australia-- the former child migrants from here who were sent there and other co0mmonwealth countries.


AUstralia itself----------

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by TalnSG

The biggest problem in our research is the same thing Columbine mentioned – duplicate (or mangled) names. It seems mine is the first generation in a very long time not to have an “Elizabeth”, and some generations had more than one. And it seems familys always have one person who was only remembered by a nickname, not their legal name.

Oh this. This is where we got unstuck. We got back as far as this group of three women called 'Alice', grandmother, mother and daughter respectively. Trouble is, the certificates we've found relating to them have either very few dates on them, or are all signed by the same man, and we think the daughter was illegitimate so it's all very muddled. Basically we think the daughter ended up living with the grandmother, but we can't pull them apart to identify them all distinctly.

Originally Posted by TalnSG

Most people get all excited about being connected to royalty or heroes of one sort or another, but sometimes you find things your relatives would prefer were lost to history. I dug up a few “skeletons” had hadn’t been buried too well in the 1970s, and now the internet has provided even more material on a few public events in my patriarchal line. I am far from proud of some of the previous generations, but it explained a few things about family politics and attitudes for me. Even so, if you get more than just the names, there can be some wonderful anecdotes to make the digging worthwhile.

Our family were basically servicemen and women and then further back a lot of craftspeople and farmers, so really nothing glamorous or fancy here! almost all my ancestors were skivvies. :/

Mostly we just keep discovering illegitimate kids and whole branches of family we had no idea about. We even found the living relatives of a daughter my great grandfather had from an affair. They're living in scotland! Haven't found any prison records or anything, but we've found some really odd vague notes on why some of our relatives got medals. And a bunch of these awesome false limbs and x-ray slides that my other great-grandpa made.

[SSJup81]

I don't know much about my family's history and I find it annoying that I never thought to ask until I was older, but by then, the older relatives (for my mother's side anyway) had all passed away.

I've been curious ever since my late teens, but kind of difficult to figure all that stuff out given US's history with "African Americans". Families were split and all that, so who knows where my roots truly lye.

On my mother's side, I think we can only go back to my great-great grandmother who was born in 1881 (which is easy to remember since I was born in 1981). On my father's side, I think, we can only go back as far as his parents. They were kind of old when they had my father (a surprise for my grandmother who thought she was in menopause as opposed to pregnant. lol My father's brother is old enough to be his father. ><) She died before I was born. My father's father, he died when I was 11 and I didn't get to see him much and couldn't ask him many questions about the family and didn't even think about it then.

[MMM]

Originally Posted by dogsbody70

MM ---LIFE HISTOry IS Separate from FAMILY HISTORY that is why I set up a different thread.

I think the topics are close enough where a thread about recording life history and a thread about recording family history can share the same space.

[dogsbody70]

UM you think so?

writing ones own life history is a personal thing-- recording your own life history is not the same as searching for ancestors information.

I try to recommend people to record their own life-- because in later years when descendant s start searching their family history-- If some of those ancestors have made a record of their own lives and also world history-- that will be a real discovery of learning about the person for whom you are searching.


Too often today when searching for family history-- there is little actual information about those people for whom we search. Unless one is fortunate to take part in a programme such as !Who DO Y OU THINK YOU ARE" which is shown on UK TV. Obviously masses of research is done to enable the people on the programme to truly explore their ancestors history-- travel to other countries etc. They are fortunate indeed.


SO I would urge people to try to record their own life experiences where possible. Usually when we are young we literally are just LIVING OUR LIVES often its the retired generation that has time to research.

so many folk I know who tell me how far they have reached in their search for info about their ancestors-- there is still very little real information about the lives that they had led. It is unlikely that earlier generations thought of trying to record their own life experience-- working hard and surviving but it is fascinating to explore the past.

Help us to realise how fortunate we are NOW--