Before Hannah was born, i used to spend a bit of time researching my mum's family tree. Her dad told her that the family were related to Timothy Hackworth (a contemporary of George and Robert Stephenson)and i wanted to see whether that was true. I still haven't really found out yet and i don't know if i will... but i managed to find my great grandparents marriage certificate If you have the time and the effort, i think its a good thing..

Or we could all become like Vera Duckworth, convinced we're actually next in line to the throne

Mr Wicked is looking into his family tree at the moment, his mother's maternal grandparents were from Poland and Spain, and the Polish lot were jewish immigrants fleeing a pogrom... very interesting stuff. He hasn't got to the stage of looking for birth certificates and stuff yet, he's still asking family members for what they know, and probably visiting parish churches and things.

I bet your tree would be really interesting if you could find out about it, perhaps somewhere there's a beautiful gypsy princess cousin that you don't know about....

Sadly, I have so few elderly relatives left, that tracing the line would be kind of expensive. None of my family are local originally, so it would mean travelling around a fair bit. As far as I know, there's no-one famous in my history, though...

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by Kate
Sadly, I have so few elderly relatives left, that tracing the line would be kind of expensive.

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Ditto. But I'd like to one day. It would be interesting to find out where the red hair comes from.

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by Red
(quotes)It would be interesting to find out where the red hair comes from.

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The milkman

Yeah it's something I've always wanted to do I know my father started doing this a while ago but I haven't checked recently wether he did and if so how far he got!

/me goes off to call pa

One of my relations wrote a book about our family tree.
It goes all the way back to 1410

I've been told that Geoff Boycott (former England cricketer) is a distant relative of mine

I would really like to trace my family tree, but it's probably very time consuming and expensive so I'll have to wait a while.

My Grandad (on ma dad's side) did his own family tree but it only dates back to him and his 21 brothers and sisters but his parents were a story alone his Dad came from a VERY rich family and he fell in love with a Romany Gypsie, he was given a choice (family/money or love) and he married her, altogether now awwwwwwwwwwwwww
(so maybe I'm related to SPIKE and that's why it's been kept a big secret.....kidding SPIKE)
On my Mum's side I wouldn't even be able to begin to research a family tree as sadly there's no-one left no-one who speaks english anyway otherwise I have an army of family in Italy.
With a last name like ours there are WAY too many to keep up with but alas no-one famous.

I have my family tree going back just 4 generations.
My Mom's maiden name was quite common and trying to figure out which 'Richards' I'm related to was a nightmare.
On the other hand my Dad's surname is pretty unique and is kinda difficult to trace.

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by EvilWillow
but his parents were a story alone his Dad came from a VERY rich family and he fell in love with a Romany Gypsie

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erm same here i think. i know they were rich. that would be sorta scary if we were related i mean you coming from the same family as me? well i don't think we have anything in common so you're ok. but wouldn't it be wierd if people off this site were related, i'm gonna start maknig a tree at work today i think.

I'd like to find out why my great grandmother (on my dad's side) was born in Rangoon, but I think it's a bit late now.

(Edited by Tycho 13/03/2002 14:53)

I tried to do mine recently but as I don't live in the same county as my family I tried to do it online. While there are a lot of sites around, I could find almost nothing. I was really surprised at the lack of online records. All in all, it was pretty disappointing but I will have another go soon.

My mother really got started on our family tree and I've done some work on it. It's not as hard as you might think. The best place to start is with old relatives of course. If you happen to luck out by finding a tree online, then of course lots of your work is done, but most resources aren't on the internet just because they're molding away in some church or courthouse and nobody's thought to scan them and put them online. At least in America.

I highly recommend it, even if you don't find somebody rich or famous. Poor people are often more interesting anyhow, because they don't have the money cushion to insulate themselves from historical events, like being able to weasel out of service in a war or being able to emigrate before persecutions really got underway.

It's also interesting because families have cultures and values just like countries have cultures and values. It's fun to figure out why your family is so whacked.

And being able to say that you're inbred is a good excuse for strange behavior.

(Edited by Diandra 14/03/2002 03:04)

I've started our Family Tree mainly because of Georgia.

I come from Polish/German and apparently Russian stock but little info is known and my Mum can only give me so much info. I've looked on a site called www.ancestry.com and found my maiden surname on there and there's a few of "us" out in America/Canada so I may have to try and find out more when I have more time.

Len however, comes from a really interesting background. He descends from a Scottish Clan called the Gunn clan who apparently were notorious and banished from Scotland many many moons ago - the Gunn Clan, I found out were descendents from the Vikings.....

On another side on his family he has Romany Gypsy and Irish/French in him..... but we've not delved too far yet.

Maybe one day soon I'll find out more - poor old Georgia seems to be born into a right "mix" of a family

My dad started it a while back, but it is a huge job for most families. He even discovered cousins that he never even knew existed!

If you are serious about doing this, I would recommend getting some 'Family Tree' software as it makes things a lot easier and it also allows you to print actual family trees and also allows you to add notes to each person if you want to profile them as well.

Our name goes back to a 13th century Irish abbot, but it has Scandinavian associations, so possibly a Viking connection?

All things considered, is it any wonder I turned out the way I did?

Found out today that my surname has been found as far back as 40 A.D. in Scotland !! Being as the only people to have had an influence on Scotland back then were the Vikings, it would seem that the name was imported by them.