So why do I do it- eh?

Trace my family tree that is.

Well, as I have explained in another blog, it was the mystery of my Nan’s birth that really set me off on the trail, but the seeds had been sown long before by a relation, Percy Garrod, who will be the subject of his own blogpost – he deserves it!

When I was very young and impressionable, Percy’s conversations with Dad seemed grown up and therefore interesting; Percy quickly cottoned on to my love of history and explained what his complex hand drawn family trees meant.

Once I had grasped the context, I was fascinated that someone related to me had lived through not only the World Wars (I am old enough for it to have been unremarkable when I was a child to meet someone who had fought in both wars), but had lived at the time of Queen Victoria and even earlier.

As an adult I enjoyed perusing Percy’s documents even more, but small life matters like work and bringing up three children left little time to wander round graveyards or visit registry offices.

Now, with grown children and the wonder of information at my fingertips via the Internet, I have time to devote to my interest, and like most worthwhile hobbies, the more I discover, the more there is to find out – but I have been absorbed by my discoveries, and connected with distant relatives.

There is still much to discover, but alongside my passion for tracing my own forebears I now have the time and skills to help others find out about their own family history, and this is something I really enjoy doing. Those who I’ve worked with so far have been as delighted to find out where they came from as I was myself.