I decided a little while ago to trace my ancestors. I am not sure what inspired this, I had always sort of wanted to do it but all of a sudden I became really interested and wanted to know who I'm descended from and (more interestingly) how they lived their lives. I've gone back to one of my great-great grandmothers on my dad's side and have found out that my great-grandfather's brother was a tailor which fascinated me as I thought they had all been farmers! I've since found out that the likelihood was that as my great-great uncle Daniel wasn't the eldest son he had to forge another career for himself as John (my great-grandfather) was the eldest son and so would inherit the farm.
My great-great grandmother (Mary) was born in 1836 or 1837. I haven't found out who her husband was as he was dead at the time of the 1901 census. I am planning to visit the Public Records Office to find all that out, as there really is limited information available on t'internet once you go back further than 1901 (or so I've found).
I did think I would trace my mum's side of the family tree but I went back a few generations and found there were too many skeletons in closets and for the sake of family sanity I decided that I'd gone far enough. My mum's cousin, who was visiting from Australia, actually rang to apologise for scaring me with all the stories(which was really nice of her, even though she hadn't scared me at all).
Maybe I focus too much on the past, but it's really important to me to know where I came from and I think it does help me to understand myself better.
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