Grow Your Own Magazine

Just started researching our family tree & I'm amazed at just how many different surnames there are in it, 23 so far & counting! Can anyone beat this?? I'm sure they can.

hiya i am into family history as well though one side of the tree i have got back to 1600 and something and one side i havent found much cos this line comes from poland and russia and very hard to find anything lol

I am keen to start researching my family but not sure how/where to start. Any tips guys?

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

there r some good family history programmes out there for the computer a good idea would be talking to ur parents if they r still alive and or grandparents
genes reunited is a good site for finding relatives then when u managed to get back to 1901 the ancestry site is a good site for the census which will take u back to 1841 i hope this helps

i have been doing my tree for many years now and have found people all over the place even far away as austrailia

My OH is a keen family historian, as is my son in law. They both subscribe to ancestry.co.uk - which costs but there is SO much info you can get from there. Himself is online with them as I type! Offset the cost against journeys to archives up and down the country, church records etc. If you're keen it's worthwhile.

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

I have been researching mine for about a year. I find it totally absorbing. I use ancestry .co.uk as well . You can look at all the census. There are also other people who are researchng that you can interlink with and get more info.

A great past time

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Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful..William Morris

My brother has done quite a lot of work on the family history, but only through the male line (typical!). I would like to find out more about the history of the women in the family, but as I'm still working full time maybe that will be a retirement project in a few years.

Ive got my paternal line (posh eh?!) fathers line back to the early 1800s and then the parish records went into latin which I cant understand. Got my maternal line back a couple of generations.....its all fascinating stuff! good luck to anyone who is doing this - its brill to find out where you come from - you may even unearth something you didnt know about! Bernie

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

It's what I do for a living folks, trained as an historian which I still do when not gardening and do genealogy in it's social context for people.

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TonyF, Dordogne 24220

I have been researching my family tree on and off since I did it as a history project at school, I love it. The stories you find are fantastic, and when you get back far enough to check census records, it's great the little pictures you can make in your head of how your ancestors lived.
Online sites like ancestry.co.uk are brilliant, as not only does it save having to traipse around to the relevant libraries to look at the records, but it also saves on lugging huge volumes out and back, riffling through pages, etc.
Once every year or two, I pull out the family tree box, and devote any time I have to research. I can't do bits here and there, as I find my research is better focused if I can totally absorb myself this way.
Now I'm into my allotment stuff, I've no idea how I will fit this in but there must be a way!

I have part of a family tree at home, started by my Nan and it goes back to approx 1800 through her mothers line, I have been trying to confirm dates etc and fill in gaps with modest success. I have heard from my sis that our Aunt has got back as far as 17-something on our grandfathers side. Plan to subscribe to ancestry.co.uk soon.

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I'd rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.

http://hollandsroadparadise.blogspot.com
updated 14 May 2008

www.bradleyroundtwo.blogspot.com

So find out what you can then when you get kinda stuck, subscribe to this ancestry.co.uk ? I know father in law has done some work on his family so that is a help. Mother and I don't speak so that will be tricky. All our grandparents are gone so I think now would be a good time to start before the link to the past generations is totally gone.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

This is my second hobby- esp in winter!!

Have you noticed how many peoples glaze over when you talk to them about it????....more so than the allotment!!!!!...and strangely those who seem to roll their eyes tend to be close relatives in the tree!!!!!

Try and get a photo of a neice from a cousin ...easier to get a photo of your great grandfather's brother!!!!!!...tis SO frustating!!!...esp the Irish relatives!!

I'm happy to help out direct those who are interested in chasing their families.....

Yes, Yes, YES!!!

And if you really want to piss off an historian or pro researcher who you're asking for help, tell them how far back you've gone, for some reason it really digs people out tho it doesn't bother me too much, the dates only points of reference.

It's not how far back you are, broadly 1827 is fairly easy and straight forward, you could do that with the old 'Somerset House' records, it's the quality of the research, the depth and breadth of the research that makes a family history what it should be, the social history of your family. No point knowing that you're family were butchers, bakers, fullers etc without understanding how that fitted in with the rest of the family and what the trades actually meant, how the family was involved in their community etc.

I don't actually do too much work on UK records tho I have a small team of people in my company that do, they also organise DNA projects and the like. I specialise in Huguenots round the world (I edit a journal for the Hug Soc of GB) , the Brits in India and the East (East India Company stuff), Armenians, the odd genealogical groups in religions, the out of the ordinary.

Most of the stuff I do and write about starts in the 16th and 17th centuries and goes forward rather than the other way round, sort of makes more sense historically tho I do often have to go backwards for the main character's family history.

And no, I haven't done my family!!!!!

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TonyF, Dordogne 24220

Sounds really interesting TonyF. Apparently some of my mother's acestors were from Mongolia, how far back or whatever is going to be very difficult to discover though!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Don't fancy my chances of going back very far. My first name derives from "wagon" and my last name from a plough of some description. I'm guessing I'm from farming stock!

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A simple dude trying to grow veg.

http://haywayne.blogspot.com/ - Updated 30th November

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/p/dev036pr___.png

Shirl, Mongolia is easy!!!! As are Hindu, French, Armenians but not the Swiss, the records are sealed for 100 years.

The real thing for me are the people who have been told by 'experts' that their families went to Britain with William the Conqueror, fought with Hereward the Wake etc etc. According to my calculations, the Norman Conquest had more French participants than D Day twice over on both sides.

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TonyF, Dordogne 24220

My problem lies in that I don't speak to my mother or any members of her family so finding out names or anything will cause problems.

I would love to know why I know the dates of birth for both my parents, but they have never been able to tell me their paren't birthdays never mind year of birth!!!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

See....I said alive and kicking relatives are harder work Shirl!!!!

www.genesreunited.co.uk can be a handy way of linking up with family members who are also interested in researching the family tree.
It's great the amount of information you can find for free, but I've found that when I've exhausted these resources, and can't go back any further, buying a certificate can make alot of difference, and is worth the money for the time/frustration saved.

My family are from Ireland originally. We have relatives in Scotland & Wales that we know about. On my dads side though one of his uncles was in the British Army & got sent to India. His wife was pregnant at the time so we think we've possibly got relatives over there but we're not sure. Also, on my mums side we have a relative from Roscommon who sold her farm & pub & went to America with 2 of her 3 sons & 1 of her 3 daughters.
I think I've found the records on the Ellis Island website but because we don't know how old she was when she went I can't be sure.
We've got a German name in the family too, at least we think it's German (Bovenizer) so we've possibly got relatives there. I find it fascinating & would love to have the time & money to properly research it but unless we get a nice windfall from somewhere there's just no way it'll be done until the kids are grown & left home.

I used to work in a county archive and the same goes for the amount of Americans who are descended from the Pilgrim Fathers! Those boats they sailed over in must have been HUGE

We also had a sweet old chap who had a very common surname and happily collected info on anyone and everyone else who shared it, confident in his beilef that he must be related to them 'somehow'

Despite (or I dunno, maybe because of!) having a degree in history and working in that field, I've never felt the urge to trace my own family history.