Family history

You can get some huge,mind blowing facts from researching your family tree.Someone decided to do this in Australia for his mum and I have ended up with a sister and two nephews,I was totally unaware of.I never knew my mum had a daughter born three years before me who was adopted.We have since Skyped and it's amazing how similar our lives have been.We were both brought up in a small village,both went to a Grammar school,both went to work in a chemist shop,left and went to work for a dentist,then worked in offices.We both had two boys but there the similarities end,as she and her husband emigrated to Australia and I was never so adventurous.She looks very similar to mum and myself,same eyes ,same mouth and we were both dark haired as youngsters.So,good luck to anyone researching their family tree,you never know who you will find!

I’ve enjoyed dipping into tracing family. However, it’s quite addictive and so many different options and links to follow. I would mention that I did come across several relations with their names mid-spelt - so be aware of that. Don’t automatically think you have wrong person. Good luck!

found out the couple that live 8 doors down from me. we are related through great great grandparents. i did comment to my brother a few years ago that he looked like my late uncle, yes they got the same surname .and i knew of them many years ago .but didnt know we are actually related .though they deny it. oh well thats life .records show we are related ,maybe a copy of the records shoved through their letter box might do it.

People are often keen to prove a connection to aristocracy or royalty or whatever. I don't consider any of my ancestors 'boring' because I have huge respect for them. Life wasn't easy as an agricultural labourer, carpenter, farmer, factory worker or whatever. They had huge challenges. Researching their lives shows where they lived, worked and worshipped and brings them to life. I find them all fascinating.

www.familysearch.org is another free to use site, along with www.freebmd.org.uk, as mentioned up thread. Try those first to get started, before paying a subscription to Ancestry, would be my recommendation.

Like mittenma, I was adopted in 1947 and no father was named on my original birth certificate. I found my half brother in 1998 - our mother had only mentioned me once when she was very ill - she said "if my daughter was here she would look after me!" Sadly he didn't follow it up although an aunt confirmed that his Mum had had an illegitimate daughter who was given up for adoption. (Birth mother died in 1997) Brother and I get on very well and are quite similar.
My parents told me that when they adopted me they were told that my father was a Canadian airmen who was based near Woking. I'd love to find out more. Can anyone recommend a suitable D NA test?
Thanks. Lyn

Callistemon the story of my life.

Almost , nearly but not quite...

Oh, wait a minute, that American woman should be Queen.
I'm just the poor relation

I should be Queen

I was quite excited when some hints came up on other people’s trees ( all American) that led to one of my Grt Grt x ? appearing to be the 19th earl of **. My actual research was that yes we have the same name in our trees , but the likelihood of this Earl (brought up in Holland and only speaking Dutch) should somehow find himself on a farm deep in Dorset, then find my Grt Grt x? Granny , the daughter of an Ag.Lab and getting her pregnant is pretty far fetched.
Especially as he was married to a Countess and didn’t come to the UK apart from the one time to collect his title and settle the Estate, (he only inherited it because there was no other Male left. The title died out with him. )

Anyway I contacted a couple of the Americans and it turns out that they started with a famous person who has the same name and then twist the facts to make it fit their tree, they weren’t amused when I pointed out the errors.....can’t think why not? possibly because they are using the family Coat of Arms on their letter headings!
You couldn’t make it up really could you? Oh, wait.....

I was surprised at the interesting things I found out about both sides of the family, DH's and mine.
Some were very adventurous and emigrated far and wide, others just moved around Britain.

Like others I have "done" my family tree but had my DNA tested just recently and after a flurry of cousins turning up, some of whom I already know, it has gone rather quiet.

I did find it a thrill though to discover, or rather affirm, some family stories and find that what I guessed had been a Jewish gt grandfather, really was.

I'm sure you won't find it hard Luckygirl and anything that relieves the coronaboredom is worth it.

I have a subscription to Ancestry if anyone wants a lookup?

An uncle, now dec'd, traced our family through Ancestry. It was, as I thought, b. boring
Seems that the only person in the family who ever did anything remotely adventurous was....ME!
Always knew I was the cuckoo in the nest

Riggie I am descended from Anne Boleyn. Someone in America with about 57,000 people in her tree has linked us both back.
Never mind the fact that Anne Boleyn didn't have any grandchildren.

Just curtsey please.

I am fed up of an in law telling me she is back to royalty. All she has done is accept every hint on one of the sites. Not one bit of it is her own research

Yes certificates are now VERY expensive,i looked up my own divorce papers on the register (for births,deaths,marriages,divorces,on gov't website) as i had mislaid mine in cupboard somewhere and son needed it for student finance for his university grant/loan..i was only going back about 15 years but it was well over a hundred pounds, as i didnt have the 'case number' (yet with a case number about a tenner!) So theres a huge difference! So, instead, 3 days of much searching in old boxes ensued,resulting in finding of needed papers and son got his student finance sorted! But imagine how much it could cost to get old records for some searches

Thanks for the info Hetty58,i might try that when things are back to normal,as ive lost touch with one or two relatives over the years.

Oh Luckygirl,let us know how you get on..everyone asks my son if hes related to a certain prime minister from the past too,but i dont want to blurt it now on here,i wonder if your related? Its through his dads side,as i know his paternal grandad had brother/or brothers but dont know much else.Dont really want to mess about with an ancestry site though,but i do know theres a coat of arms for his surname.

I did the DNA test and it came up with the daughter of a cousin. I only met the cousin a couple of times as a child and her daughter was here to settle her mum in a care home and was then going back to Australia where she's lived for 30 years. It turns out that she lives just a few miles from where my son lives in Australia.

I did try a few years ago. I was trying to find out about my grandmother - maiden name Sarah Jones, who married Hugh Jones!!! There were about 10,000 Joneses all born in the same year, most living in the same village - I gave up!!

Last year I was asked to do a family tree for someone whose
father was born in Ireland, the person who asked me only knew his fathers name and he was born in Ireland.

Ireland records can be difficult, many were lost in a fire.

I found his paternal grandparents had moved to England and
where they were buried. I found he had a half sister and they
met last year. I was thrilled.

My dad had a very dark, and handsome(!), look - think Larry Olivier/Gregory Peck. I have often wondered about his family's ethnicity. He never spoke about them although I did meet an aunt and a cousin who had equally dark and strong features. My sister, daughter and granddaughter have inherited some of these features but I am more Celtic in appearance, especially the freckled, fair skin, though sadly, no glorious red hair like my son, gran and uncle.... I have always felt a strong connection with Russan culture and Orkney where I now live. Consequently I would be disappointed to find through research that I had no genetic connection and totally understood Si King's disappointment when he discovered he was not descended from a Viking especially as Dave found out that he was!! I'm both tempted and wary of the DNA test as I have seen the question raised about how your DNA information may be used nefariously.... to the point that I have even hesitated to send off my DNA to a Kings Fund mental health research project. What do others think?

I found a relative way back called Rosie. She was taken to court and fined for being “drunk in charge of a cart”. Hilarious, explains a lot about my family.

I use Ancestry and it's very easy to use, I have some unusual surnames in my family so that made things fairly easy. I have made contact with a few people that I am related to, in fact I have met some and become good friends with them.
As for the black hair and darker skin colour, we have that in my family, turns out that some of my paternal ancestors were Roma Gypsies. Good luck with your research, I'm sure you will find some fascinating stories.

I've been trying to find out my fathers real dad, and through DNA I think I might have found him! Please don't think that other family trees that you see are correct, many people just take the first names that look right and that will totally give you the wrong information.
I found my dads family on a tree in America, someone had put all my uncles on their tree and given them American ancestry, according to this person they were all born, lived and died in America. So annoying, and the first time I saw this tree it seems that my gran had been married dozens of times, all over the world and had umpteen children, sometimes two in one year, in different countries. I did contact this person who then changed the obviously ridiculous "facts" but as yet, he hasn't removed the rest of my family, so frustrating.