Family Historian User Group

This was a remark made to me by a colleague at work on Monday, while I was searching in Ancestry during my lunch break.
He went on 'Does it matter who was alive 100 or 200 years ago'. I rolled out the usual 'Knowing where I came from....'
Tuesday he searches me out and tells me a few facts about his great Grandparents and asks if I can find them.
Did a quick search on info given and up they pop in the 1901, along with 6 children. He's gob smacked. Looked back to the 1891, 1881 and 1871. One daughter died young, place names, even a lodger. Then it's on to the GRO website to order up the marriage cert.

To be honest I don't care !  [rolleyes]   Another one hooked.

ID:1949

We've had that effect on people too. I think it's the ability to look people up on the censuses that gets them hooked... there they all are with their siblings, mothers-in-law, occupations, and so on. You just have to find out who they were.

I've really enjoyed having a look for other people's 'people' as well as my own 'lot'. Often, searching for another series of names is almost as good as a rest and equally rewarding - when it all goes well.

vliet[cool]

Agreed - its fun, and refreshing when one has hit a brickwall on one's own researches.  BUT I would only do it with the person's specific permission and would never bring it forward to search for people beyond the 1901 census in order to find living relies - they must do that for themselves in my view.  

I did some work for a friend at his request when his grandson was born, but his wife was very unhappy and was only reassured when I said that I was only going backwards from the information on his grandfather that I had been given...  My friend is now hooked (and impressed by the by with the demo on FH and the very basic CD I produced which he passed on to his now also ianterested brother... so another hooked - if his wife lets him!) but I do think that even though the info may be there for us all to find, we should not, in effect, invade other's privacy.  I am sure no-one here would do that anyway but my friend's wife's reaction brought it home to me quite forcefully!

I find the research fun.Tracking down elusive ancestors,working how to find someone in unlikely places and then getting the right 'hit'.Brilliant!!![grin]

'To be honest I don't care.'

The wording maybe someone else's but the sentiment is the same for me I'm afraid. [frown]

'So what the heck are you doing on this forum then?' They all shout.

Because my wife is into searching out her ancestors (she's got as far back as the 1700s on one line) and we needed to solve the problem of our laptop not showing the diagrams - now solved thanks to Jane! [grin]

Anyway, while I am more than happy for Jackie to do her family history and I happy sit there and enter it all onto F.H., I really have no interest in knowing my own ancestors.

It just seems a waste of time because it wouldn't affect who I am or what I do.

I mean, I think I'm quite an interesting case because while I obviously know my mother and father - on my father's side I never knew his parents (not even names) and we just never talked about it (he died in '94). He also had no brothers or sisters (that I know of).

But I'm not really concerned about it and certainly wouldn't sit here on the internet looking the information up.

To quote 'I mean, I think I'm quite an interesting case because while I obviously know my mother and father - on my father's side I never knew his parents (not even names) and we just never talked about it (he died in '94). He also had no brothers or sisters (that I know of).'

I suppose I'm lucky in that way. My parents and my maternal grandmother would tell me about their youth, specially if I started a sentence with 'When you were young...' All three sadly gone now but they did leave me with enough information to start tracing my tree.

But you rarely think of that when you're very young. And my father died when I was in my early twenties.

But like I say, it's not something that really interests me. I do find it interesting hearing what my wife has found out, but it doesn't inspire me to find anything out about my ancestors.

If I did want to know more about my father's side I'm sure my mother knows.