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

by cmfenton , Ferndown, Dorset, Monday, January 12, 2009, 08:50 (5866 days ago) @ admin

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