I’ve been inspired for the last few days, although, my wife has been more inspired than me.
Last week we watched all of the ‘My Family at War’ series on the BBC where celebrities traced their ancestors involvement in the First World War – mostly grandparents and great grandparents. After watching the programmes, we started talking about my Great Grandad, who apparently fought in the First World War at the battle of the Somme. By all accounts, he was gassed and then taken prisoner.
For a lot of people, their great grandfather is merely a historical figure who they have never met. In my case, he died when I was 20, so I had a long enough time to get to know him, so he’s not just some old dated photograph in a box.
Long life runs in my family it seems, there is a photo taken of me when I was born, with me, my Mum, my Grandad, my Great Grandmother and my Great Great Grandmother (who was around 99 at that stage). Five generations. Doing the sums now, my Grandad was 53 years old in the photo and still had his Grandmother alive. Astonishing.
Anyway, the BBC site showed us how to search for service records and off we went. Unfortunately there were an unbelieveable number of John Renwick’s in that part of the world at that time. In an attempt to narrow it down, we decided to search the Scottish archives for old birth certificates, death certificates and census entries in an attempt to ascertain if he had any middle names etc.
What we uncovered was mesmerising. It’s hard to believe you can go online and view the actual original documents. We ended up tracing the family back 6 generations. We’ve been onto Ancestry.co.uk and started to build an interactive family tree.
Since then, we’ve traced back other branches of my family, particularly on my mothers side. Great fun and at times surprising. The aim is to create a family tree for both sides of our family with Sam as the end point. It won’t be lack of enthusiasm which stops us. If anything, lack of records might be our main barrier.
on Nov 17th, 2008 at 9:16 am
It is kind of addictive, isn’t it? Long long ago in the days before children which were also the days before the internet, Husband and I spent many happy, geeky hours in Register House in Edinburgh, researching our family trees. Mine was a bit dull. My family are all from Newhaven and they all married each other and stayed in Newhaven! Still fascinating to do though.
on Nov 17th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
My Mum and sister got into the family history last year when my gran died and now they are both addicted. My Mum even went onto some ancestors reunited thing or something and managed to get in touch with a long lost cousin! Good luck with your quest!