talking about your family history
 

tracing family history is a thriving activity these days. I wonder if any of you have done any research about your own ancestry.

thinking about it-- does Japan have birth marriage and death registers similar to our UK way of recording BMD.


Many people I know are really hooked on tracing their history- some back to the 17th Century.

I wonder how easy it is in each country to research and discover things about your ancestors?

PS: I read somewhere that some japanese women do not take their husbands name.

Is this true? and anyone know the reason not to want to do so.

We've traced ours back to the early 1800's, late 1700's. It was kind of a pain in the butt getting that far, mostly because of too many cross-generational common names, and too many people who had rows and went AWOL, or just plain vanished during the wars. We did however discover that the grand family rumor of the Irish gentleman who got a maid pregnant and ran away to England and changed his name was a total farce. He was a postman and lived all his life in London! Still it's pretty interesting. What I want to do though, is get my grandparents and my parents to write some anecdotes about some of the people we do remember though; because I never met them, and I would like something to pass on, more than a name and some dates- a memory is more personal. Anyone's great aunt could be called 'lucy smith', whoop-de-doo, it's kind of special to find you had a great-aunt called Lucy Smith who once threw a rabbit out a window at an RAF officer, or was mad for mexican cucumbers or whatever. Or in our case, a cockney g-g-g grandfather who made up a lot of stories!

Genealogy is a thriving business and hobby for many in the U.S. Maybe because we know that whoever we are, each of us came from some other country at some point; except for a few Native Americans who come from families that never married outside their tribe.

In the 1980’s, my parents and other relatives decided to continue my initial efforts to trace both of my parents history and get as much of it documented as possible. They turned out to be rather good at it. Its best to document as much as you can from the older family members while they are still around to answer questions.

We have taken my matriarchal line from the Texas revolution (1830's), back to Cherokees and Welsh settlers in Alabama in the late 1600’s. But we took my patriarchal line back to a Fergus/Fergis on the Isle of Mann in the 1100’s. Only thing is, we have his daughter’s name and not Fergus’s first name, so we can’t be sure whether he was an Irish or a Scottish Fergus who was occupying the Isle at the time. My gut (or my preference?) tells me it’s Scottish. The two countries seemed to have fought over that piece of land and it changed hands every decade or so for a while.

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.

[FONT='Arial','sans-serif']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.[/font]

Chinese Ancestry is mind numbingly hard to trace, because there is 1.3 billion of us. I know from my Dad's side that they've lived in Hong Kong a while, and my mother's side my Great great grandma moved over from China. My parents essentially speak the same dialect so we know that out families come from somewhere in China called Weizhou. Any other than that, nothing!

recording your life history
 

ON another thread we are discussing family history-- tracing our ancestral line.

Now I am in favour of Us all recording our own lives for POSTERITY.

Mostly when we are young we are too busy just living our own lives and very often its retired people who later have the time and inclination to search for their families.

If we actually do try to record our lives--maybe keep diaries or these days video ourselves and families--- then when our descendants start searching information about US-- there wil actually be a record that we have written or organsised about ourselves-- plus other members of family-- plus the tremendous changes that happen during our life time.


So Have any of you recorded your lives and experiences-- feelings etc up till now?


Its well worth doing for those who follow you.


Because often when tracing family history there's not an awful lot of real information about your ancestors.


I wonder that as the Japanese have a special day to celebrate their own ancestors-- whether they also record family history and every day life-- special events etc etc.


diaries are a good start-- and can be a revelation when one re-reads said diary years later. So have any of you made a start on writing or recording your own life history?

I was unable to trace much about mys own history-- only knowing my own mother for three months-- and feeling rather reluctant.

One difficulty is that all too often because of our registration system too often the female line is much harder to trace. So many certificates only hold the Father's name-- but not the mother.

ALso the habit of Handing down the same Christian name down through the family. DAVID, GEORGE< ALBERT etc being repeated through the male line.


I did discover that my mothers father was a musician-- and his father worked with horses. In those days horses would have been the main form of transport.

farming Had many labourers whereas nowadays as it is mechanised farming has changed enormously.

I think one of the pleasures of tracing family is also learning about the lives they would have led at that particular time. so different from our own.



THE Mormons have their special site with so many records.


It is so much easier now its available on line-- but whether it is available for all nations-- I have no idea.

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

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).

well lots of students here have to do at biology family trees as far as possible and with relative things - diseases, blond or dark hair, how died etc.

so my sister did one and ended up dating back till around 15th century i think.

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----------

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.

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.

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.

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--