Family Information

[Vagus]

I see on another thread that Barmaid is writing a small book about her family for her aunts.

I've recently written an eighteen page document about my family, prompted by one of our children asking who so and so was and how do they fit into the family.

I thought it would just be a page or two but once I started I couldn't stop. It includes my thoughts and feelings about various people in the wider family, and how everyone fits in. My dad was adopted as a six year old but was encouraged to keep in touch with his birth family, I had seven grandparents one way or another at one point.

The children have all found it fascinating and each now has a paper copy of it, I'm really glad I was asked to do it as it made me remember lots of things both good and bad, which I'd forgotten about.

Have you ever done something similar?

[rockyracoon]

I haven't but it's a smashing idea that I might take on.

[Vagus]

Go for it Rocky, the most difficult part was where to start but once I got going it was easy.

We have a few family bits and pieces around the house so they were mentioned to, and where they came from.

[Peter Pedant]

My papa did an autobiography - but he had tunnelled out of POW camp

I did a page for every year of my ( miserable ) life - in real time ( every year) - so that is now 70p

My siblings have declined ( failed to do so, altho given notice)- even tho my father was a diarist ( and used to search out find and read ours which was a bit off putting)

[douglas9401]

No, I'm content as things are.

[Prudie]

My step-grandfather wrote something of similar size about his time as a soldier in WW1 and my step-father did similar about his time as an army officer in India (riding horses and pig-sticking....), both documents have been printed and bound for the family.

I couldn't write about my family as most of them were not particularly nice and have a lot of skeletons in cupboards but I do wish my mother had done similar - there are so many questions I regretted never asking before she died about earlier generations, where we lived etc. 

[Peter Pedant]

few family bits and pieces around the house

The Police hem hem had cause to visit the house, and said every piece was like an old family friend

( "I bought the dining  table from the  granddaughter of the people for whom it was made in 1827. I aid £400 for it at auction and you will notice the octagoonal leg..)

[Peter Pedant]

My mudda was at St Josephs convent Conoor, still  there, 1920-5 and SOOOOO little  happened that we found her stories - one girls diary written in Polish ( Sr Annunciata has a big nose and foul breath etc) - the father was summoned to translate it to the nuns

had been filched from A frost in May Antonia White....first printed 1927

[jno]

ha, Sister Plagiarata?

Yes, I sat down to investigate family history (with help from notes from others who had already done similar) and ended up with a 100-page book going back 300 years. My original plan was just to write about my own life, at the request of jno jnr, and I will try to do that next time.

[Peter Pedant]

I found that I (we ) were related to  the only civil servant imprisoned over the Poulson Affair 1972 ( taking back handers) - I felt the family REALLY had to know about that one - also also said to be ... Frank Morringer who faills to arrest Ned Kelly at a hoolie ( in Oz) as in Robbery Under Arms

[Peter Pedant]

hi jno - happy new year

[Barmaid]

This will be the third one I have done of these.  I'm having to furiously edit it down since I have only just completed one generation and it is 32 pages (although I have done it in 14 point to help those with failing eyes, and I have included a lot of snips of documents, maps, certificates, newspaper reports and pictures of people and their houses).  I still have another 5 generations to go.

Mine is based on historical research.  Yours is of far more value, Vagus, because it is your memories and really IS about the people.  Where I have been lucky enough to be able to talk to older members of the family, I have documented their recollections, but most of what I have written is from rather sterile historical records.  The best I can do is collate the information and put some historical context to it and try and make it interesting.  Your writings would be absolutely compelling to me and something I would treasure.

[Vagus]

Prudie, we have an axe murderer way back in the family, writing this document clarified where he fitted in 😱

[Peter Pedant]

Prudie, we have an axe murderer way back in the family, - so you had to chop thro all the dead wood to get to the interesting bit....

My brudda commented: by the time anyone is interested in all this, we will have been dead for forty years

[Barmaid]

I do not have an axe murderer.  Yet.  I consider that Mr BM is pushing his luck on that front though.

I write little articles every now and again for them.  My Uncle called it "The Dark Archive".  The Christmas edition of my little family tree archive was "Interesting ways we have found to remove ourselves from the gene pool" - dealing with some of the more inventive ways some our ancestors met their end.

[Vagus]

Barmaid, my OH did some historical research about his family tree and traced it back to 1660.
One of our sons has recently visited the church his 10x great grandparents were married in, who coincidentally has the same Christian name as him... I say coincidentally because when our son was born we had no idea that his 10x great grandad was also called this. They are the only two in the family who have this name.

[Vagus]

It's amazing what can turn up isn't it? 

[jno]

good afternoon, PP.

The only person I'm related to of any note is Robert Fripp of King Crimson, and thus by marriage to his wife Toyah. She played Miranda in The Tempest for Derek Jarman, whom I am also related to via a marriage in my mother's family. Even more distantly, the man who burnt the White House. (Before it was white, it wasn't painted till after the fire.)

&ab_channel=Toyah

[Barmaid]

In over 30 years of researching, I still get amazed by the coincidences that crop up.  There are so many!  Probably the biggest one was to discover that my great great grandmother (who lived in Hastings) became the housekeeper for Mr BM's great grandfather in Yorkshire.  

I've got a couple of well documented lines I can take back to the 1500s and a couple of "slightly iffy" ones too.  I can trace a direct line for my grandmother in the village in which she still lives to the 1500s (although I have never actually told her the less than complimentary term one of the vicars used for an ancestress who had several children out of wedlock).

[jno]

my mother's Scottish grandfather and my father's English great-uncle were at the same Presbytery meeting 50 years before their descendants met. A lot of devoutness on both sides of my family, at least in the UK branches of the family; I don't know about the Asian and African branches.

[pastafreak]

Mo, but if my sister had lived a longer life, I've no doubt she and I might have teamed up.

But, when I was a child,  one of my mother's cousins did a very thorough history of the Italian side of the family. I seem to recall it going back 100s of years. Is this possible without the convenience and accessibility of the internet? Though I suppose even very old Italian church records may be quite detailed. 

I think I saw this record once and copies were distributed to all adult family members. I'd give my eyeteeth to see it now.