Several years ago I decided to research my ancestry as I was curious about some of the stories I'd heard over the years.
Part of me had put them down to half-truths retold over time into garbled stories that had little meaning or truth to them at all so I got a subscription to a website that searches people's history and, starting with my parents, began to trace backwards. It wasn't long before I found out I was wrong about the half-truths as I uncovered factual accounts, birth, death and marriage records, shipping lists, court documents, electoral rolls and other documents, corroborating the stories.
I was fascinated, and hooked.
I traced back hundreds of years on my mothers side. It's a long way back, but the British kept excellent records and the website has access to historical records from around the world as well...seeing the name of an ancestor written in a book from all those years ago is an interesting feeling, I guess I sort of felt a connection across time and space.
Over time I began to piece it all together, a genealogical jigsaw puzzle, and after about a year or so had a reasonably complete map of my family history.
I've looked at it since, added a few people, my niece and nephew, adjusted people's profiles like the death-date of my father, and followed a few leads that have popped up. If you've ever seen and used it, the worlds largest genealogy website, you'll know it's extensive and ever-changing as new records, photos and information come online.
It's been a couple years since I've looked at it now, but over the weekend I had an email come in advising I had a message from another user. That could only come from someone who had, or wanted ,some information that related to my family tree.
I keep my family tree set to private so no one other than me, or people I grant access to, can see it, so she had no choice but to contact me, after all we're actually related in some convoluted manner.
The woman who contacted me wanted information on one of my ancestors. My great great great grandfather on my mothers mother's side is the brother of her great great great grandfather.
The two brothers were sons of an Englishman who was convicted of burglary and sentenced to death back in England in the early 1800's. He, and two accomplices, broke into a house and stole items totalling seventy pounds in value - English law was brutal back then, hence the death sentence. His death sentence was commuted, after an appeal, to transportation meaning the penal colony on Tasmania, Australia a world away which often was a death sentence anyway, but for John it was not. He served his time in the penal colony, later getting married and then the two brothers arrived. That's pretty cool right?
The brothers came to Adelaide, South Australia (individually) in the mid-1800's to escape the stigma of being a convicts sons and things went from there. They were seventeen and twenty eight. My great great great grandfather was already married at the time, I'm not sure about his younger brother.
I've seen the court documents from their father's trial, transcripts, the ships he travelled to Australia on as a convict, the ships they travelled on later from Tasmania to the mainland, marriage certificates, death certificates...it's all documented. As I delved deeper I came to feel pride for those people, their persistence, the endurance and fortitude they showed to make it in the brutally harsh place Australia was, and as the sons of a convict; the father especially; the penal colony of Port Arthur was a brutal place, often a death sentence but he survived. I have been there, know the history and yes, it is totally eerie and unsettling being in such a place and it's difficult to comprehend that humanity lived there, and survived.
Anyway, I gave the other user as much of the detail as I could muster; this all happens in secure and private direct messaging, and she then asked to have access to my family tree. I've not decided to do so yet, for security reasons, although I understand the hunger for it...delving into these histories has been very rewarding, given me a better sense of myself and helped me to understand a lot more of my history...it's also confirmed all of those stores I thought were garbled half-truths.
The small snipped above about the two brothers and their convict father is just a fraction of what I have uncovered about my ancestry in a history that spans the globe and many hundreds of years.
It's a little odd to think I can reach back so far and I wonder if my ancestors would have done anything differently had they knew I'd be able to reach back and know them. I guess not though, people just tend to live their lives and don't think too far forward. It's funny though, people seem to think they'll be well-remembered but in truth, most of us will fade into anonymity, crumbling memories that over time will cease to be remembered at all. I guess, that's another reason I wanted to find them...I wanted to reveal their stories, to...honour them in some small way.
My family tree goes a long way back, much father in time than John the convict and his sons, one of which was my great great great grandfather on my mothers mother's side. Not all the details are there, but a lot is and it's been interesting, humbling and enlightening to reveal it. Looking at the tree, the lineage, with the last two entries right at the bottom, my niece @smallsteps and nephew @MrBonkers I wonder...will their great great great grandchildren ever look their family tree up and find me?
Have you followed your family tree back in time? Would you want to? I know people who simply don't care about it and I admit, it wasn't until the age of 47 that I decided to delve into it. Are you interested in what you may find? Do you think you'd feel differently if you could draw a line back several hundred years to your ancestors? How far back in your family tree can you trace? Feel free to comment, I'm interested to know.
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Wow I never thought about it and now I'm curious, I'd like to find out more about my ancestors.
I only know something about my great-grandparents but little to tell the truth.
Who knows where I could find news, I'll look for some site.
I guess what you used Tu is not suitable for Europe... or am I wrong?
Ancestry is the site. I'm not sure how good it is in Europe, but it's a pretty powerful resource so I'd not be surprised to learn it's pretty good. I've gone back to the mid 1400's with mine.
I'll try it, but tomorrow for tonight it's bedtime... here it's already two in the morning eh eh!
See you later and you, have a nice day!
Late one huh? Go rest, it'll be there tomorrow.
I really enjoyed all the family history research as well, Luckily one of my cousins is into it too so we swap ideas and information. I find all the English census records so fascinating and informative, really helps build a picture of what and where you come from. I did the DNA test match up and report to try and confirm what I had found. The further I went back the more branches there is to explore. I have had a few emails like yours from Distant relatives but nothing since I let my membership lapse. I would !LUV to get back into it again to double check everything and see if any new records have been added. My prized possession is the original 1875 army pay book of my Great Grand Father.
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It helps having some support as people see things differently and that can lead to a more thorough tree. It's for that reason I understand the woman who contacted me, who wants access to my tree.
Things like this are pure gold!
I have a gramophone record of my grandfathers brother (a famous musician) which I value for instance, other things too. It's funny how those simple things come to mean so much. Of course, I have a lot from my grandfather as well, but nothing beyond him, except for photos of course, loads of old photos from before the turn of the century. I'm like the record keeper for my family.
I did start probably on that website ages and ages ago Had a subscription that I eventually let lapse when I stopped having time to work on it. I’ll see if I can try to make time again at some point.
I traced back J’s side of the family easily (to like the 1400s or something), but got stuck on my great grandparents. I still think it’s stuck there though over the years I’ve been getting emailed “hints” about J’s side 🤣
One day.
It's a time-consuming thing, there is no doubt. Also, two monitors help as one tends to have multiple windows open. It's rewarding though, or so I found it.
Just on your side scenario...With my own (on my dad's side) I only got back to my grandparents which is a bit unfortunate. Mid 1400's on my mum's side though, also, travelled to Cornwall to visit the sites where things happened, churches and graveyards mainly. Felt good to do so.
Your dad's side is Asian? I kind of came to the conclusion at some point during my research that we simply weren't important enough to keep records on XD though (hopefully x_x) more likely that website can't access records from that region.
My father was born in Malaysia, to Indian parents...so no records are available and they're all deceased, those I knew personally other than my aunt, (dad's sister) who only has very limited information.
Yeh that makes things hard x_x
Wow that's so great. It really took you so long to discover them. Me, I have known and seen all my aunt and uncle in my mother's side as they are all just living in the same island as we are Mindanao of Philippines but on my father side, I haven't met some and I don't met my cousins because some of them were living in Luzon and other is in other countries. I am not so connected to them.
But it is good in your side that you dig in the history until to your great great great grandparents.
Yep, going back to the mid1400's with my family history has been interesting. Sure, I'll never know them, but I know them better than I did before and that's good enough.
1400's? Oh that really too far with us. But yes it might be interesting.
It was to me, and that's what counts.
Wow, such a great work done.
And that's nice seeing that back in history, we are more or less all relatives to each other like your great great great granparents. It's a sort of mysterious connection that bind us all and we most of the time forget it due to ego and other "human stuffs".
Inspiring, again! Thanks
It's an interesting concept to think about, the fact that in some way, we're all actually connected as human beings, and yet we're so different and do such terrible things to each other. Sad really.
Genealogy has been a hobby of mine for about 20 years now. It can be addictive. It seems like anybody with an interest in history would be fascinated by genealogy. It's like your very own personal history after all. When I started out, you were really just starting to be able to find useful info online. In the early days, worldconnect was an awesome site where people could share their trees and you could find common ancestors. Ancestry ultimately bought them out. Sources were not always well documented though.
In those early days I was more concerned with finding more individuals to put in my tree than documenting them well. I've kind of shifted back to making sure they are well documented. With over 90,000 individuals now it's going to take a while. Sounds like a lot (and it is) but it isn't too hard to get into large numbers if you expand away from direct ancestors and include their other descendants (cousins).
I'll usually be intensely into it for a few weeks or months and then not touch things for a year or more. In all this time I've never had an ancestry.com (or any other pay site) subscription. Every time I get back into it and I'm about to pull the trigger on an ancestry.com subscription (which I have still not ever done yet), it seems like there is a new stash of free info or an improved free site with tons of original documents that are well indexed. Until that is exhausted (or ancestry gets cheaper) that probably won't change.
However, I do have one sort of genealogy mystery that I just can't seem to solve. I can't get any farther back than the 1800s for my father's direct line. There's lots of interesting info about that individual and a lot of speculation but his parentage is a real mystery. One of these days I may resort to one of those genetic tests to see if it helps...
Addictive for sure!
I tend to do the same, wade in for a while then take a break and do something else. It works for me.
I've not used other sites for mine, ancestry is slick, the way they piece it together, search for links, other users can contact as per this post and how user-friendly it all is makes it difficult not to use them. Also, the amount of documents is incredible. So, I pay the money, although it's not the cheapest thing in the world I guess.
Yeah, I'll break down and pay for Ancestry one of these days. I was about to do so when I (re)discovered the revamped site of the LDS (revamped since whenever I saw it last anyway). FamilySearch.org has tons of documents and links to other places with them, all for free. I'm sure it's nowhere near as comprehensive as ancestry but there's a lot, especially census records, birth and death records, etc. They don't have the more obscure stuff you can find on Ancestry but it's enough to keep me busy indefinitely.
I've heard of others and that people can get a fairly good family tree put together with them, but as you say, it's the extras that Ancestry has and for those already a long way down the track with their ancestry, it's those extras that provide additional value. Do it when you want to, there's no point paying for it if you don't have the time to use it effectively.
It's interesting to look into family history, I agree. My uncle (on my other's side) is obsessed with it and has traced our family tree back several hundred years all over Europe. He's written several books with his findings. My parent's house in the states has an entire bookshelf shelf dedicated to his books. Unfortunately no one on my father's side has ever cared so much, so I can only follow it back to my grandparents in Sicily.
I should sign up for one of those sites one day. ancestry.com is about the biggest, right? I have the interest but I just don't have the time right now. But I figure the historic data will just become more and more available, so it will be there waiting for me in the future.
It can be time consuming for sure; paths diverge and split off again and before long one has spent three hours delving into one single aspect. Do that every day and yep, it eats into ones time. I enjoyed it though, and feel I have gotten a lot from it, personally.
Maybe you'll get to it at some point, I think a person needs to be in the right frame of mind to do so, that's when they get the best returns from it, the most enjoyment.
I feel like it's mostly people who find it difficult discovering or defining themselves that go back in time to seek help. In developed countries, it's much easier, (I mean the actual act of discovering of course not the decision for fear of what one may find) because there are so many accurate records. In places like Nigeria, one would actually have to do the leg work, ask so many question, go back to the village, go from house to house and all of that. Sometimes it's a dead end because the person who could've known about the next lead or some important piece of information just died or the writings have been eaten up by termites or whatever else forces one to give up. So over here, you better discover yourself somehow else or keep your curiousity in check, except in extreme cases that have to do with superstitious beliefs then yes, all that hard work is worth it.
You're right though, people don't think too forward. They don't think too backward too, especially here where history isn't even part of the curriculum. I've become curious though, just by reading this piece but all I can do is wonder. I shall not do the leg work. Haha.
Interesting piece by the way.