About Page.

Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget, you can never re-tell – Louisa May Alcott

Ecclesiatics 44:9

And there are some of them there is no memorial who are perished as if they had never been, and are become as if they had never been born, and their children with them. But there were men of mercy whose goodly deeds have not failed.  Good things continue with their seed. Their posterity are a holy inheritance and their seed have stood in the covenants. And their children for their sakes remain forever. Their bodies are buried in peace and their name liveth into generation and generation…

Genealogy is addictive! It’s also time consuming. Potentially expensive. Family history encompasses all the attributes of picking up a wonderful novel. Being cast back in time to tales of intrigue, romance, desperation and loss. Fashion, dastardly dealings and heroes taller than mountains and some villains as well. It is my hope that the stories I author will bring to life the struggles and triumphs of our ancestors. From the life-changing to the seemingly insignificant. It is these twists of fate that brought you and I to where we are today.

One of the greatest pleasures gifted in my life has been the opportunity to travel. I’ve found an immense personal satisfaction to stand where these people once stood.

Maybe it’s a dusty old door covered in ivy with countless years of embedded dirt. Or a rusted out piece of farm equipment or the ancient worn smooth cobbled streets of the worlds cities. There is true joy for the historian in these tangible remains of long past human journeys.

When I’m working or reworking on a story (are they ever finished). I often mutter to the people I’m writing about, or ask questions out loud to them. I try and write as respectfully and with dignity, the same as I would about anyone living. On that note, stories of living family I don’t write about. That is a task for future generations.

I have and expect will continue to come across some truly salacious material. I try to make a real effort to weigh up. Is this public record, for example “in a newspaper”. Could a reasonable person find this information themselves? Is this a family story? If it is a family story that adds value to our history? I will investigate it for evidence. If the information has no evidence or is unreasonably cruel or serving only gossip to repeat? I omit it. I own I have learned this life lesson over forty five years of research the hard way but learned nonetheless.

Nothing good ever came out of idle gossip.

I’m stunned how often a seemingly insignificant thread will lead to crucial information in research. In contrast, I’m often bewildered as to what should be a straightforward ‘look up’ becomes an immovable brick wall. I take them all in my stead. I’ve learned when you hit a wall? Go sideways. Sometimes you have to look at what else was happening ‘in history’ at the time you are researching. Or you look at other relatives who are not your direct line. This type of research can lead you to places where you can find the critical information you seek.

I’ve always been curious about history. I’ve always been curious about why we as humans do what we do. I believe we are a frail, intractable and deeply flawed race with incredible propensity for love and hatred. Kindness and cruelty are both sides of the same coin in my opinion. We struggle to survive to emerge and to continue. Often in what seems to me to be overwhelming odds.

As a ten year old child I was blessed to have a much older maternal grandmother. She was seventy when I was born. For the time, this was unusual. But, it meant she was a living history narrator. She was also an amazing person as was my grandfather. Both of them were the quintessential grandparents. They were generous in sharing and filling in much of my first information about ‘where we came from’. I did this on pieces of butchers paper that my grandmother diligently cut up and kept as notepads. This was a woman born at the beginning of the twentieth century. She had lived through two world wars, a depression. What she couldn’t cook or save or reuse wasn’t worth having. These pieces of paper held together by an old metal clip became my first writing.

Here is the disclosure bit:  Am I an expert at this? Absolutely not.   If you are looking for 100 % accuracy and a finished tree?  I will disappoint you.

 I’m only one of the leaves on this gargantuan tree. It is constantly emerging, demanding to be updated and refined. If I’ve made a typo or a boo-boo in facts? Please reach out to me. I truly do appreciate the many generous people who serve as my unofficial and deeply valued editors.

Research is time consuming, expensive, and regularly exasperating. I fund this entire project myself and share it with you with an open heart. Please contact me if I have overlooked a necessary acknowledgment on the site for any of your information, photographs etc.

There are three ‘pages’ I have open at all times when I am researching and writing.  One is my Ancestry.com account, one is the page I am working on. The other are my ‘reference pages’. I strongly encourage you to use these. They are a treasure-chest of information and material when you need to ‘follow a thread further’.

With my ancestry page remember this is my ‘shoe-box’.  It’s where I’m storing bits of information that I am working on.  The potential for errors on trees on Ancestry is entirely probable. Always helpful to remember that validating your own work is key in making sure you have grabbed the right leaf. Forgiving yourself and moving on when you haven’t is essential. Don’t get bogged down in your journey. We are a world-family and I love reading about other peoples stories.

I am profoundly grateful for DNA research. Many ‘maybe’s’ have been definitively answered with this ground breaking tool. I’ve gained family I would never have known, and for this I am always going to be entirely grateful.

My deepest appreciation is extended to the many family and friends, both near and far, whose generosity in sharing information, pictures, and stories can never be overstated. Their number is many, and I mean many.

It is my opinion that  we don’t ‘own’ our family histories.  I believe they are meant to be shared respectfully and with goodwill for all generations. We are only ever custodians of history. Unfurling our own leaf on the tree, which like all others, with time, will eventually fall and make way for the new leaves.