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September 2007
Wednesday, 5th September 2007  Our second issue of the magazine coincides with the first anniversary of the launch of the Family Tree Forum website.
The strength of the site is the help which members give each other – from genealogy to problems with their computers via gardening hints. The Wiki, our Reference Library, has been created from members’ recommendations over the past year and continues to expand. The Research Advice forums are always busy with people helping each other break down brickwalls or finding elusive ancestors in census returns. The Community boards provide help, support and advice on a wide variety of topics including more general threads about genealogically related discussions. One of these threads, “Why did you start your family history research?”, started by Simon in Bucks, forms the basis of three of this month’s articles. Other members have shared their personal genealogical detective work, including another Simon who writes about his search for his biological mother.
| 'That's the thrill of family research, finding the next big challenge' |
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Why did you start your family history research?
This was the question I asked on a recent thread on Family Tree Forum’s General Board. I was very curious and interested in the ‘why’ part of the question as everyone has a different reason.
For me it was because I had a need to finish something that my family had started 20 years ago on a visit to London. However at 15 years old I lacked the resources to continue. It wasn’t until I watched the television programme ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ in 2006 that
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I was completely hooked.
A memory from a childhood holiday led to manna from heaven. I thought I had no family. I was always a loner, never fitting in anywhere, feeling like a fish out of water. I became quite introverted and self sufficient. Then by pure chance I moved to the county where my father had taken me when I was 4 years old. He had shown me some places and told me a little. The only thing that stuck in my mind was that my grandmother had bred Suffolk Punch horses (I just love them) and him telling me &ls ...
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Curiosity got the better of me.
Going back to my roots. What led members of FTF to start tracing their ancestry. I started researching my family history because my Mum had a half brother she had never met. From an old newspaper clipping she had she told me he served on the first Ark Royal aircraft carrier in WW2. Last year there was a programme on the carrier, where they'd rediscovered the wreck, Mum was sitting with me and just said "my brother was on it". I got intrigued, found GR and tentatively started to hunt. ...
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| Genealogical detectives at work |
 | From Cornwall to Northumberland.
They moved 400 miles for a better life but were met by hatred and death. As I was growing up in County Durham one of my aunts used to tell me that my paternal grandfather was Cornish. Her story was that his parents had taken their young family by horse and cart all the way from Cornwall to Durham. I hadn't taken much notice of this at the time, thinking it was imagination. It wasn't until I decided to start researching my family that I found out there was some truth in the story but a lot of imagination too. ...
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Francis Peck, my great grandfather.
Francis was born in Barton le Clay in Bedfordshire and he was baptised in St Nicholas parish church on 16th October 1814. He was the first child of William Peck and his wife Anne (nee Clark). William and Anne had married in that same church on Christmas Day 1813. There were a number of Peck families in the Barton and Shillington area of Bedfordshire; probably they were all distantly related. Although Francis’ father William was actually born in Essendon in Hertfordshire, we think that his family pro ... Read More >> |  |
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| I would like to share my story with you. |
Simon's Story
I would like to share my story with you and hope that your outcome will be as successful as mine. I had a great childhood living with loving parents and a sister who was also adopted. I always knew I was adopted and thought it was quite normal. I told everyone who was interested and can’t remember anyone ever having a problem with it. The only time I ever remember being mildly inquisitive of my roots was when I was watching a county cricket match and wondering which side I should support! It would be true to ...
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