Over the last six months I have been researching the family tree. There are various services to help with this sort of thing. I tried a couple of websites, on free trial, to see how each one worked/how I got on with them. After dicking around with a few for a couple of weeks (technical term there kids) I eventually went with Find My Past; it was as easy to use as Ancestry and, unlike Ancestry, wasn’t being used by any other immediate member of my family (because you’d want to avoid duplication/replication, obviously).
I haven’t done the DNA test, maybe I shall eventually, but for now I’m just concentrating on mapping out the relations.
There have been a bunch of real characters in the family. This is my maternal grandfather and some of his trophies:
The trouble is (it isn’t really a ‘trouble’) is that with each generation you go back, the branches of the tree quadruple (and sometimes they divide more than that). And that means having to spend more time investigating. Digging through electronic records isn’t a great hardship. Being absolutely certain that the person whose details you’re looking at is the right person though? That’s a bit tricky.
I’m sure there’s a way of being absolutely certain that the Reginald Smith (made up relative) is the right Reginald Smith, but I’ll be snookered if I can eliminate the feeling of doubt. Several times I’ve gone down the wrong avenue (hey, if you’re looking up Peter Jones who was born 130-years ago in North Wales… Well… it’s tricky).
The one thing I will say about doing this is you don’t get the flavour of humanity.
Yes, you can find your Great Uncle Three Times Removed (I think that’s a thing), and you can find out when and where they were born, and died, and what the census said about their occupation, but the humanity about them is missing. What were they like? What anecdotes could they have told? Or could have been told about them? What were their hobbies? What did they enjoy?
I would love to have that information about them. About all of them.
I have been doing my family tree for for a number of years now, on and off, and what you say is absolutely correct. The further back you go, the more difficult it becomes to verify the information you’re given. On Ancestry, I found an obscure relative I never knew I had, who has been doing this for years and he has managed to trace our tree way back to the 1100’s. Apparently. There are no citations included, so I’m doubting the veracity of his work and the noble bloodline he claims we descend from.
But just going back a hundred years is difficult, when sons, fathers and grandfathers all had the same first name.
I’ve got a tactic. I accept/create a new relative then track their rellies. And if it starts to feel not right I delete the new relative I’ve created and start again with another new relation. It’s a bit ruthless but it is a process of elimination
Back in the 80s one of Dad’s cousins did *extensive* research mostly focusing on Samuel & Mary, who emigrated from England (Smethwick, if I recall) to New Zealand in 1840, and all their descendants, of which I am one. He also went back further and provided a likely, if slightly tenuous line back to a chap who lived around 1200 AD. After that time, Mum & Dad continued with extensive research into both sides of the family in the UK. A couple of interesting facts have come out of all this. First, if I have this correct, Mum’s grandmother was sister to Michael Caine’s grandmother. Or something like that. Second, one of the very distant ancestors started selling bottled water from a spring on his manor. On one trip back to the UK (Mum was born there) Mum and Dad visited the place where the spring water is still sold. That year at the family Christmas dinner, we were served some of the spring water with the meal.
I’m putting this as a separate comment because the other one is already long enough and this is a different angle. As much as you want to know about your ancestors with some ‘colour’ to their lives, you should also ensure your own descendants can learn about *you*. My Dad started writing his memoirs when we has around the age I am now. He never got around to really fleshing them out and so all we have is really bullet points and what little we know. The fact he started at my current age is a fact I learned from Mum as a result of starting mine. Rather than ramble further here, take a read of this contribution I made to a friend’s blog/podcast.
https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2022/01/36000-words-allister/
Wow. I have to say this is a brilliant initiative. I shall spend some time thinking about the best way to (retrospectively) create the same kind of thing. Thank you Allister.
I’ve been mentioning this all over the place because I think it’s really important. All of us will have interesting stories, some of us will have incredible ones.
I read one my Uncle got from someone who would have been a contemporary of one of my ancestors about the experience of the 1929 Murchison earthquake. It’s a real eye opener on both the severity of that event and the lives of the people before and after it. The bit that always leaps to my mind as I recall it is the sheep rolling down the hill.