Why and when did you start on family history? (General)

by smrashton, Monday, January 12, 2009, 06:09 (5872 days ago) @ admin

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?