General Chat

I was reading an article in the Saga magazine and I came upon this paragraph. i wondered if this was the reason we research our trees. see first reply. Ann glos

"Our greatest need is to feel that our life has significance. we all need to feel that other people have noticed our existence and regard it with some respect. We all need to feel thatw e have not simply filled in time between birth and death; that we have left what Samuel beckett called 'a stain upon the silence'. When the time comes for us to leave the world stage we want to feel that our life has been satisfactory to us and that something we have done will have a long-lasting effect upon the world." Ann Glos

How very true. I think I started mine as at the time I felt as though I was floundering and where did I come from. Diane

I thtink I do it partly fo the self satisfaction and partly because I will be leaving a little bit of me behind when I go. It also makes me feel I am part of the continuing history of life. If you know what I mean. Although my parents were alive when i started it, the death of my Father, the last survivor of his generation bar one spurred me on. Yes, a side issue is the number of like minded friends I ahve made along the way, and the relationship that has been forged between other family members and myself. Ann glos

Must be something about my threads (getting paranoid now). This is the third thread I have put on lately, all the other threads seem to get loads of replies, mine get 2 and fall off the board. not interesting enough I suppose? I thought it was a good relevant subject. Ann Glos

Ann I've only just seen your thread, and yes it is a very relevant topic. Well I think so anyway! I certainly have become more interested in my roots since my parents died. I think that's true of many of us on here. How many times do we read 'I wish I'd asked my Mum/Dad/Grandparents more about their relatives'. My Mum was an only child, but with lots of cousins. Her parents each had 9 siblings. Luckily her parents had unusual surnames - all on this site are related to me. My Dad's family is very different. He was born in Canada to a Canadian father with Scottish roots and a Welsh mother with Worcestershire roots. Their names are much more difficult to link to my tree, but I've had a triple breakthrough this week from 3 different people in Canada, 2 of whom are distantly related to me by blood. Still my children are not interested (nor is my 53 year old only brother!) Maybe it isn't just 'an age thing' after all. Perhaps it's just the nosiness in some of us no matter what our age! I really enjoy researching, even if it does bore the rest of my family! I'm hoping they will all thank me one day - probably when I'm dead and they all wish they'd asked me about my relations! LOL Sue

I've always been interested in stories of any kind, so family stories were interesting too. I knew about my parents' childhoods, and we also had two family bibles, one on dad's and one on mum's side. I was quite intrigued by mum's because her grandparent's surnames were Smoothy & Chowns, which were rather unusual. Dad's were Gray & Matthews, not so unusual. But I suppose I became more interested because my dad and my parents-in-law died, and I have children, so its about continuation - keeping the dead relatives' memories alive. It's sometimes frustrating, I remember my mother-in-law talking about a Letitia Ledger in the family. Well, when I came to research the tree there was no Letitia in direct line - I've since discovered she was the second wife of my mother-in-law's great grandfather! nell

I started because I wanted to know who my grandfather was. After searching for a couple of years, I realise I will never know. There is no marriage certificate anywhere neither is the fathers name on the birth certificate of my father.