I was doing a bit of my family Genealogy and I have found some coincidences in the family. My Grandmother and Grandfather were married ,both aged 19 years,they had 5 children in their marriage. My Mother And Father lived in the same street,they married both aged 19 years. (They were born on the same month),they also had 5 children. My Mother And Father also passed away in the same year,only months between them. I have traced back to family members who fought in the American War Of Independence,1775-1783. Some of them fought on opposite sides in the War Of Independence. Some things never change,some of my family could not agree in 1775-1783 And they still can't Agree in 2012. Has anyone done a bit of Genealogy ?,Have you found out things of interest in your searching ? Some things I have found I have been amazed at, but I am still putting the Jig Saw together at the moment..
It's interesting what you have found out Music. I've often thought about it myself and know it can work out expensive with web searches so it's been shelved. My uncle traced our paternal family tree back to the fifteenth century but I've never had the chance to see what he found and recorded, if it's still in existence. I'll have to ask my cousin.
I've been thinking about the whole DNA see where in the world you come from thingy. I've got Ginger hair and a tendancy to enjoy a good Axe or Broadsword, so that might narrow it down a bit. My cousins traced our family tree, verbal legends only stretched back to London in Victorian times, although there was a rumour we may have come from Ireland a long time ago. Turns out before London, we were near Salisbury (a city i've lived in, have a great fondness for & often visit) Found a gravestone of a Thomas Searchfield (Same name as my Dad) in Heytsbury near Salisbury. He worked on Churches in Victorian times. My Grandad had a family sawmill business till he went mad, seems we've often been involved with trees & carpentry. Before that, we came from Dorset in the 1500's Lots of repeated first names such as Thomas, George, William. Had a phone call from a lady who was born a Searchfield near Salisbury, she saw me in the phonebook & called to see if I was her cousin Zoe. There's still a branch of us in London, but I don't really know them. My boy Roland is the last male decendant of our branch in the west country. There was a Bishop Rowland Searchfield in Bristol in the 1600's. Apart from that, don't really know.
I haven't tried, all my relatives are/have been born in Italy, do not know how to search their records. Some of them, I think I'd rather not know about them.
A few years back I started to trace the family tree on my fathers side and was quite enjoying the detective work and hadn't got very far, when out of the blue I was contacted by a very distant relative unknown to my family (he had responded to my request for information on a site). Anyway, he sent me a copy of the line I was tracing, going back to the 1500s. The tree was huge and my grandparents names were along the bottom line. Looking at the tree, my dad spotted an error... my grandfather had one sibling too many. On further research we found that this person had existed but was disowned by the family for falling pregnant at a very young age. The outcome was that my father was able to meet up with his first cousin. More interesting for me is that my grandfather on my mother's side kept a journal of his life from 1903 - 1923. He talks about his transatlantic crossing on the Empress of Ireland (in steerage), arriving in Canada and having to dig a well to serve their self built house with water, his first day at school were the kids were playing with a Colt 32, his attendance to the first ever Stampede at Calgary. WW1 started and he signed up to join the army lying about his age, he was just 15, and once in England he met my grandmother. Anyway, it's a good read. Sorry... long post.
My family tree threw up so many skeletons in cupboards I was tempted to change my family name to "hypocrites"! Bless 'em
Nah, not hereditary, Grandad had an accident, got thumped on the head by something. Was never the same afterwards, the family lovingly described him as "Gone Doolally"
Tried for a little while researching and all. But my fathers name is hard to say, so thinking most probably shortened it. Anyway, so I went off the sight. Also have ginger hair, I like to think I have Viking background in me from way up north that came down and roamed around casting seeds everywhere. They say you can find the redhead gene in frozen nomads found in iceland.
Was it Redstarsdottir? Thats no good, my avatar can't date your avatar if they've both got ginger hair, might be related
I've researched mine a bit. I didn't get very far. I was a bit stuck with my dad's side, because some family dispute or other means my dad doesn't know much about any of his grand parents. On my mam's side, I got as far as my great great parents. But there's a twist. While I was living away in Sheffield, I became good buddies with a colleague and his missus. His missus was into all this genealogy milarki, and had spent a few years researching her family history. She'd gone to much greater trouble than me, and had even visited register offices and the likes in her search. She thought her family had all come from Lancashire, but surprisingly her search took her up to the north east, to my native homeland. My family name (paternal side) came up a lot in her research of her own family, suggesting that if we aren't distantly related, then perhaps our ancestors had some kind of contact. From her research, not mine, it turns out that my family name is associated with mean people that owned much of Northumberland and County Durham. My surname is quite rare, except in two parts of the country, being Tyne/Wearside and Cornwall, and is a proper Norse Celtic name from what I can gather. I wont publish my real surname here though if that's ok, just because its a public forum and all (some of you know it anyway)
