Here is some information which was collated from the Feedback form responses submitted by visitors to our website during the past six months.

Easily top of the list of submitters are females between the ages of 55-64 who reside in the United Kingdom. Nobody under the age of 35 has submitted a feedback.

I wonder if these figures represent visitors to our site as a whole. Are all the people of the younger generation spending their time bringing up families or enjoying the nightlife! Genealogy seems to be a thing that most get interested in later in life. I myself did not get involved with family history seriously until I had turned 40 and that seems to be the case with most.

Why and when did you start on the road of family research? it would be interesting to hear what prompted you to start seeking. It appears that our desire to know who our ancestors were and how they lived in their day, is a passion we develop as we get a little older and reflect on our life a little more than we did when we were younger!
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Age Percent
16-34 0
35-44 12
45-54 25
55-64 44
65-99 19

Gender Percent
Male 35
Female 65

Country Percent
UK 80
AU 8
NZ 5
USA 4
Other 3
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I started a few weeks after the death of my mother in 1998, my father had died in 1986.

When my mother died my oldest sister gave me an old and ruined family bible that my father's grandparents had started. That was the spur I needed and it has taken over, I spend about 15-20 hours every week on family history.

Why this site?, my great-grand mother Mary Ann Hannah Meek was born 26 Dec 1846 Morse, Ruardean.

When I started family history in 1998 I was 44 years old.

David Jones

--
Rhondda Valley Boy

Hi

I'm 49 years old now but my interet in family history began in the 1980s when I was in my mid twenties and competed with a compelling interest in women and the animal rights movement of which I was a part. I studied history at university but as at school always found it difficult to place what I was learning about the famous and the royals in context. Being a socialist I was more interested in how ordinary people lived and the part they played in the events that I studied.

When I became more interested in modern history (as opposed to Roman, Medieval, Tudor and Stuart etc.), it was possible to see the role of ordinary people relayed through film, photographs and original written documents (letters etc.) I talked a lot with my grandparents who were then in their 60s and 70s and found that they had lived through many of the events I was studying such as the end of the British Empire and the Second World War. Through them I heard about ancestors who died before I was born, killed in the London Blitz and taken as POWs in North Africa.

I reaslised that my ancestry was quite complicated with Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English blood running through my veins. Family legends finally prompted me to begin proper research in the mid 90s when I was in my mid-thirties. In 1996 I put my findings into my first hand-drawn family tree which included people born in the mid nineteenth century. Then I subscribed to Ancestry and have constructed a tree with some branches including 10 to 14 generations.

Being trained in history I am very particular about being able to evidence all additions to my tree and I find that most of the parish records further back than 1800 provide insufficient proof of descent. As a member of Genesreunited I now spend quite a bit of time demonstrating to contacts that they have made errors. This weekend I showed that a distant relative who sahred an ancestor in Tewkesbury with me had decided that ancestor was born in Newent and had moved to Tewkesbury. Using your website I was able to show the person born in Newent most likely remained there and married there. Our Tewkesbury ancestor must have come from somewhere else, or the record of his birth/baptism has been lost.

Yours

Ralph Cook

I began tracing my family after the birth of my first grandchild in 2006.
Thanks to this site I found my g.grandmother a Taylor and her family from Awre and Alvington.An added bonus was to discover that my g.daughter had been given the same name as my g.grandmother Eleanor.
I knew nothing of the family when I started out but it has been a great journey of discovery.It resulted in me visiting the Forest of Dean for a week in April last year and finding the family graves.What a beautiful area it is.
Non of this would have come about without this site many thanks to all concerned

PS. I fall into the top of the list catagory of submitters

I am 70 now and started tracing my family history in my 60's.
I was working at a Police Training College at the time and one of the Officers there was researching his family history. I told him I would love to do mine but did not know where to start.
He brought in his documents etc and gave me a lot of advise about going and searching the microfilm of BMD and obtaining certificates etc.
I was then very new to owning a computer, but have since found it invaluable with sites such as this.
My mother was born in Ross, but my Grandparents and Gt Grandparents lived in Bishops Wood and Walford.
My mother has been dead for many years, I do have a few clues in the stories she told me, but she would have had so much information which would have really helped me.
The family spread out over England and Wales and most contact has been lost.
I have found the parish records especially helpful.
It is a fascinating subject and once you get started you are hooked!
Janfran

I'm one of the four Americans, please don't hold it against me. I have a passion for history and there is none better than your own family's history.

In 2003 I took a one year certification class at the University of Washington, "Family History and Genealogy" it was the best and yep I'm a certified "Genie."

My sister had already researched my mother's side of the family, which is Native American and Norwegian, so I am researching my father's side, which is Irish, English and Welsh, what a mix huh?

Through Ancestry I connected with a relative, Ian Watkins, in New South Wales and on his webpage he has a link to this one. This is the best website I've seen sofar, everyone is so helpful and I am grateful for that. Thanks.

Ellie
(Soggy in Seattle)

I fall into the 5% kiwi group.
I started asking questions about my roots back in February 1974 as a High School Project.
We were given basic guidelines on how to set it out by the teacher. I was just turning 15 years old, I am now soon to turn 51 years old. I had been interested long before 1974 were my family roots had come from. Questions like were there any other twins in the families, why did my ancestors leave the old country etc. Some of the olds were supportive and gave me what knowledge and information they had eg old newspaper clippings of Hatch, Match and Despatches. But I also had families that were worried what deep dark secerts I might unearth. So alot of softly treading I made. I think some were hoping my interest would wane and disappear when that year of 1974 ended. Too late I was hooked. I say i would spend a good 24-36 hours a week give or take.
As I said I always had a keen interested in history and a love of Jigsaw puzzles, so i see this as the biggest jigsaw puzzle I have even done and will continue to seeks may roots to it's time to meet my ancestors in the great beyond.
Now I have found living family back in The UK and alot I have found on this FOD site has fueled me on saving to go and walk the land of my fore ancestors. To met Ivan, Cherryl, Catherine, Barbara, David H, David R, Amanda and Richard hopefully soon m8's Cuppa Tea white hold the sugar guys.

Several triggers: After my Mother died, lots of interesting letters & photos emerged.
My Father died when I was very young so I knew little about him or the family.
An exercise when my son was at primary school - find out names of Grandparents - my mother knew very little about hers, and less about my Father's.
My husband's father did a lot of work on his own family - that was an inspiration.
I finally got started by sending for my Grandmothers' birth certificates in 1997.
I interviewed my Uncle - his info was accurate but he knew nothing beyond his own grandparents.
I made very little progress until the census became available online - that was when I discovered the Forest connection.
Through this website ( and help from Slowhands) I made contact with my third cousin in New Zealand. Through him I was able to find my father's cousin living in Devon. She has a wonderful collection of photos - and lots of info all started to fall into place.
It's a very addictive hobby - I fall into the majority category, but my son who is in his 30s has traced his own family quite a long way, especially the Gloucestershire ones.
This website has a real community feel - I much prefer it to Genes for instance and the Parish records section is a great help to locate the record which saves many hours trawling through microfiche at the Archives! Keep up the good work!
Julien

I started tracing my ancestry about 25 years ago in my early 20s triggered by the loss of another grandparent (I then had just one left) I was very fortunate as before all their deaths my father had 'interviewed' them on tape about their childhood and early memories so I had lots of stories to back up the 'facts'. The remaining grandfather (and some of his siblings) were also able to add lots of clues and memories - many of which apparently wierd bits of information have been found to be true. My interest in FH coincided with a period of unemployment so I had time on my hands to carry out the research. In those days though 'research' meant going to London or the register office local to your ancestors (difficult when they were at the other end of the country) so it was very time consuming (and, as anyone knows who spends hours in darkened rows of fiche and film machines sifting through thousands of records - very tiring!). A new job meant that the files got put away for several years and yes, time was spent on career development, enjoyment and having a family. The 'Who do you think you are' programme really sparked my interest again and registering for Genes Reunited introduced me to all the valuable on-line resources to help research. It was a GR contact that introduced me to this site and another that introduced me to Ancestry which I have also found invaluable. Through this site I have found numerous pointers to information, really interesting background details, and made a few 'e-pen-pals' I agree that everyone is very friendly and helpful.

So, David, I wonder, how did you manage to inspire the first few contributors to create this site, so that the information and repository grew to the invaluable resource it is today?

My interest in family history was developed through my youth with phrases from my Father who casually said Your G.G.Grandfather came from Little Dean, Westbury on Severn, I never met this GG Grandfather he died in 1943 and I did not come home from India until 1944. My father never spoke about this side of the family, his Mother died when he was young and he left home and joined the Army, when I got married my Husband threw away a comment of course I have relatives that come from the "Forest" - but we never knew anything about them, these phrases were implanted in my brain and niggled away so when computers, retirement, Ancestry and the Forest of Dean Message Board came to my notice I had to search, and my goodness what I have found, I wished my family had kept in touch, they would have been able to answer so many questions, but I have managed through the site to find out about their background, Iron Masters, family moving to America, coming back home again, linking in with Cousins that I never new existed finding relatives, much further down the line living in Australia, and still plenty more to keep me occupied.

I think I fit the profile of your feedback perfectly.

Barbara Lloyd

I spent my childhood visiting my maternal grand-parents, uncles, aunts and cousins in the Forest - so the connection has been there now over 60 years.
My mother returned to the Forest in the 1980's after my father died so the connection was strengthened with the visits to see her, initially in Cinderford and Coleford and then for her final years in Ross.
Inevitably that involved visiting family graves in the small graveyard behind the Baptist Chapel on Ruardean Hill and the rest is (family) history - though that really only started seriously when I had a little more time once I had retired.
It's much easier to follow up my Forest roots with the assistance of this site and its members than my Black Country ones - though there are miners scattered through many generations on both sides of my family.
I often wonder if I really did have one g.g. and two g.g.g.grandfathers called Thomas Meek!

Colin

I first started many years ago when my father kept on insisting that his family were Irish. His name was Ernest Patrick - which in his eyes made him 100% from the Emerald Isle. I started to research his family but, having got back to the mid 1700's on both his mother's and his father's tree, no-one remotely Irish appeared. We just put him down as a daft old bat, who liked his pint and his Irish music.
A few years down the line, a contact who was researching the same family, casually informed me that in the early 1800's, one of my father's ancestors did in fact originate from Ireland, but had lied on the census and said he was born in Yorkshire, as he was only a baby when he was brought to this country by his parents and siblings.
Apparntly he was having difficulty obtaining work, due to the large influx of Irish workers so he just changed his place of birth.
Sadly, my father had died by the time we found out and I was never able to tell him he was correct.
Jean Herbert

My Interest in Family History began when I was a Child, on wet, cold Sunday Afternoons sat around a Coal Fire, my Paternal Grandfather and his Brother would talk about things that had happened when they were young. They were such Good Story Tellers, that I became Hooked. When I tried to find out about my Mother's Family, she declined to talk about it. This only Fueled my Curiosity.

Three years ago, I changed jobs and found I had my evenings free, started to research my Family Tree. I now spend about 14 hours a week on line. Now I can't wait until I retire (3 yrs) to have time to do Field Research as well.

I have also made contact with Descendants of Family, who emigrated to New Zealand and we are now working together on the Tree.

This site is Fantastic.

Alison

I fall into the majority category and am one of the kiwis (s'pose you could say aussie, now).
My great aunt started it all years ago when snail mail was the only way to do it. She researched one branch (from Somerset), then her daughter took on the Scottish/Prince Edward Island lot. I found it fascinating and for years I was always gonna do it, because there were gaps and I wanted to know more - but it seemed too hard.
Along came decent computers and broadband - and it was suddenly very easy.
Entered what tree I knew on Genesreunited and went from there.
It's truly fascinating discovering who you are and where you came from. The family values that have been inherited - in my case all hard work it seems.
Have been very fortunate with the start I was given and further help from Genes members (one of whom passed me onto the Forest site) and help from Jim and Slowhands. Was really tickled the day I found them 'talking' about the emigration I had put on the site.
Still not sure about Benjamin Trigg, though - which one belongs to me???

I count as one of the 5% of Kiwis. My interest probably started when my father told me about his trip to UK as a member of the National Brass Band of NZ. He toured in 1953, but it wasn't until some years later (30 years) that he refound his diary and gave me an insight as to where "the family" had come from and telling me of his regret in not visiting the forest. We had copies of birth certificates, and some of the elderly family were still available to talk to.
The advent of the internet; this website of course: Google for helping me find my Scottish ancestors (The Adams of Adamsrow); contact with the Baddeleys on my mothers side and the tree is now at 840 souls. This year I will do what my father was unable to do; visit the Forest of Dean and stay for two to three days. Exciting stuff .

I'm a category 4 - too tired and fatigued to work, but still mentally young and physically active. Early retirement gave me the chance and time to find out more about my parents - all I knew of Dad was that he was born in Cinderford at the end of the 19th century and he moved to Yorkshire. He was very quiet about his history, and, as a child, I was not really aware of family connections, such as his first marriage, even though I had 3 half-sisters. Guess as a child such matters aren't important. Suddenly finding, about 4 years ago, that there was so much data available acted like a switch and turned me on! On my mother's side, I had been aware of, but never understood, a whole bunch of uncles and aunts. All I knew about Mum was that her mother's nickname was Katie (King) and she was of Irish descent.

From these small clues (thank goodness Dad was born pre-1901 census!)I've been able to build quite a detailed history - but the missing bits are what drives me on to spend so many hours searching.

A common theme with family researchers seems to be "following the death of....." and I greatly regret not having found out, and understood more before my parents died. I'm determined that my daughters will have more to go on!
Bob Jenkins

I started researching my family tree back in 2007 aged 56, after having a taster session on Family History at my local Library where I work part-time. My brother who lives in Canada had made a start but didn't have the time to spend on it so asked me if I would have a go, as living in the UK (Cornwall) it might be easier for me. We didn't make a start untill our parents had died which was a shame as there is so much information that we can't find, but like a lot of other people havs said, they didn't or wouldn't talk about there past. This site has been a great help to me as my family all come from the FOD mostly Bream, Yorkley,Pillowell and Blakeney.

Barbara Brown

So, David, I wonder, how did you manage to inspire the first few contributors to create this site, so that the information and repository grew to the invaluable resource it is today?

To give you some background you can read a posting I made in December 2007
How this Web site started

I will expand on what I wrote then in order to answer your question and post the updated version soon.

For me, it was when I attended a family funeral in Abergavenny in 2003 of a distant relation. I had had a long journey, arrived early and decided to try and find the grave of my paternal great grandparents, which in the massive "New Cemetery" is no small task! I did find it though, and there was something about the sun shining on the magnificant Blorange mountain and seeing my own surname on a headstone, I suppose you could call it a spiritual moment or whatever - I dunno! I just had to find out more about these people and their entire lives which only gets condensed into tiny snippets down the years. I am 37 now, but wish I'd started even younger as most of that top-layer generation had died by the time I started. It never fails to surprise me, only yesterday the new 1911 census threw up a new surprise which I never previously knew about. This website has been so valuable in finding out about my lot, when they lived in the Forest, mid-1800s. Cheers!
Sean Watkins

I began researching my maternal line 26 years ago. True Yankees, who landed on these shores in the mid 1700's, their trail was fairly well documented and researched by others. But it was my paternal line that really interested me! My grandfather was tight lipped about most of his past, except for the mention of a few cousins. One evening I stumbled onto the FoD Genealogy Pages site and noticed a post mentioning, STEPHENS, in West Virginia. I wrote to the author and he kindly put me into contact with Mike Gwilliam, who assits many regularly, on this site. Mike supplied me with enough info to set me on the right path, to find my HAWKINS/STEPHENS Forest roots. In 2007 I was able to visit the graves of my G-g-grandparents....oh what a feeling!

I'll always be grateful to so many generous, helpful and truly nice people (like Mike, Slowhands, Julie H. and Mostyn...I could go on and on) who were/are willing to take the time to assist me. And of course a great big "shout out" to our board administrator, Mr. David Watkins, who has supplied us with this wonderful venue. Thank you, David! Bless you all!

Cynthia Hawkins Wood
Pennsylvania U.S.A.

I’m 47, Male and form the 80% of UK researchers. My Mothers family are from Taynton and Huntley from 1700 until 1900 and during 1840’s her direct ancestor moved to Cheltenham then as from 1860’s the family were born in Birmingham / surrounding area’s.

Around the time my Gran died in 1978 I remember the news reader Gordon Honeycombe tracing his family roots from Cornwall. I believe the shows were conbining his own family history research with a view of showing viewers how they could do it themselves. I remember he used the local libraries and Somerset House (the very old Registry Office in London) holding the national volumes containing the index‘s of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. In the back of my mind as a teenager I was always curious about my own history due to the fact many of my family were much older than my own peers.

In January 1989 there was an item on a local news channel and live camera’s in Birmingham city centre celebrating Birmingham’s 100 years as a city. I thought my Grand father would have been born that year - 1889 and started asking questions about him with my Mom. She knew very little of her family such as grand parents, uncles and aunts and even cousins, although my Mom being the 12th of 13 children. On January 19th 1989 I purchased my Grand Fathers birth certificate in a bid to start looking into who his parents were as my mother didn’t know them. He was born in November 1887. I did this was going to Birmingham Registry office and they did a 5 year spread search for me. My Mom did know his mothers name was Charlotte.

I went to Birmingham library with my certificate and I was pointed to the 1881 census based on the address on the Birth certificate. The librarian did say I’d be lucky to find the family in the same place 7 years down the line, however viewing the film I found the family 5 doors away. The father and mothers names matched and there were his elder brothers. (Later released censuses showed him and a sister)The surprise was my grand dad’s father was born in Cheltenham.

I visited Cheltenham library saw the 1861 census and this showed the family was originally from Taynton.

I then went to Gloucester records office and got back to 1700.

Over the 20 years I’ve expanded my research and visited Salt Lake City 3 times, looked at records at Edinburgh, Cardiff, London, Lincoln, Hereford, Worcester. I have connections via the internet as family moved to New Zealand, Australia, America and India.

Dave Poyner

I am slightly younger than your core group and I'm sorry I didn't spot the survey. I'm just over 50 and in England and female.
My mother always used to talk about her family history (most of which was handed down orally though there's some written and photographic documentation too as well as a few ornaments etc.) Her knowledge of her part of the family which came from the Forest of Dean and South Wales was extensive and this was the branch of the family about which she knew most. I feel sad that she never wrote it down as now she's died I am trying to piece things together. I am also sad because I think the oral history will go once I have died along with the knowledge of who everyone was. Though I have sent some of it on to relatives abroad in Australia. The sad thing is she would have loved to know what I have found out but I think she would also have explained some things I have yet to fathom (e.g. I still haven't established how the Morgans were related to my family apart from remembering that my mother said they were "cousins" but in my family this term is used to describe more distant relatives than first cousins. I haven't yet discovered who the branch of the family were who lived in North Devon and speculate that perhaps tin mines might be the connection?!!! It was shortly after her death that I started to put my family history on a database and to write things down. Your website has been of great help to me as has the Mormons' Family Search.org. But though I started with the Forest of Dean people I have also researched other branches of my mother's and my father's families and found out the most amazing things. Not least that I can trace ancesters to almost everywhere in Britain and to 23 countries. But I know no other website which gives as good a source of local materials on family history as yours does. From doing the family history I feel part of a wider picture and linked much more closely to a wider group of communities in Britain and abroad. I'm even considering going on holiday to different family history places to research them further.
I think the fact that the Forest of Dean family moved away and went to live in Yorkshire might have been something they regretted as they spoke of the Forest of Dean as a wonderful place. We even have Coleford mentioned on a grave here in South Yorkshire as the place of birth and origin of the family. Coleford was spoken of with great affection, so much so that it seemed almost like a mythical place or an ideal world, a land of milk and honey where everything was perfect!!!! When I was 16 (the weekend before my O level results were available) she and I visited Coleford, the Forest and the Speech House as well as Monmouth for the first time for a long weekend and my mother was quite emotional when she actually saw the place where her grandparents had come from. We subsequently went back a couple more times exploring the place further. My mother used to be proud to say her family referred to themselves as "True Foresters", were on the side of King Charles in the Civil War and that many of her family could speak Welsh even though they came from the border between Wales and England. By some strange twist of fate I have a colleage who comes from the Forest of Dean who attended my mother's funeral and I feel that this linked her back to the place which her family felt they really belonged to. My mother spoke to her a time or two (before she died), on the telephone because she wanted to hear her talk to know what her grandparents' accent would have sounded like!
So now family history is rather an obsession for me I have at least 1200 people on my database and a far better knowledge of who I am and where I came from.

I arrived too late to take part in your survey. I'm in my early thirties. A rarity, it would seem.

I have recently obtained some fabulous handwritten diaries passed down from my great great grandfather, a Wesleyan missionary who had extraordinary adventures in Fiji. I wanted to know more about his background, and the joy of the detective work made me delve further. I'm also fascinated to know how and when the Malvern family got their name. Obviously, it is from Malvern in Worcestershire, but to date I have only gotten as close as Newent, Gloucestershire. How did the Malverns get there?