I've carefully avoided going down the rabbit hole of family history for many years. I was fairly sure that once I started I'd be hooked. I might have been right.
Since going through my mother's memorabilia I've spent most of the last few days trying to organise what I found there ready to hand on to any family member who might be interested. I already had a box with photos and other information that my mother had collected which is sitting in my living room but it isn't in any real order and it's been one of those things I've been intending to work on at some time. Now I'm in the process of some serious decluttering it's probably that time.
Some years ago a relative arranged a family reunion of the descendants on one side of my maternal great great grandparents so I do know something about that side of the family - at least back as far as my great great great grandfather who was born in 1774 - that's the only fact I know about him so it's just begging for future research - and for now I'm not heading there.
I knew that his son, his wife and oldest son, were among the earliest British settlers in what was then known as the Swan River Colony - theirs is one of the family bibles I found in the boxes. I decided - while trying to not get trapped into historical research too much - hey, I have a degree in history so this was always going to be risky - that I should at least make out a direct line of descent from my ancestors to my children and grandchildren as well as what items each box now contains - and because I couldn't help myself I also thought I should check out a few dates on offical documents. It'd only take a little bit of time, wouldn't it.
Four days later and the line of descent is finished and - let's be honest here - I've had a lovely time trawling through passenger lists, censuses and other documents about the early days of what is now Western Australia, many of which were really not relevant but fascinating distractions. Given how carefully records were kept I was surprised - well, maybe not - at how many errors there were in the official documents. I was following the paper trail of both my ancestors and my great great grandfather's younger sister and her family who came here a month or so later - they nearly died as the ship they were on was wrecked just as it reached the colony (but that's another story) - and the discrepancies amazed me. Names are wrong - Hannah is Anna in an early census document for example, sometimes a name is spelled multiple different ways - in different places there was Harriet, Haryet and Harriett all referring to the same person - while dates of birth and even places of birth are at times wildly incorrect. The family bible was my saviour in this because there everything is listed clearly and I was able to put together the information I needed.
The trouble is - and I was afraid this would happen - that I'm now itching to get into the box of documents in my living room and put them in order, too. I'd like to think I could do a little of this every day but, honestly, it wouldn't go that way, would it. I'd just keep finding things that are interesting and follow them and I simply have too much that really must be done at the moment. So, for now, they will just have to stay where they are and I'll have to resist the temptation to lift the lid and have a poke around. Sigh. At least I know where everything is now.
2 comments:
There seems to be a real interest these days for people to trace their family trees, and for some it almost takes over their lives. It is perhaps especially urgent in some sense for people in countries like Canada and Australia where we all came from somewhere else. As for me, I have no interest in this at all!
My interest partly comes from the historical aspect - but also because in a couple of years my grandchildren will have reached the stage when, as part of their social studies course, they are expected to put together a simple family tree. If I get it all sorted they'll have something to work from.
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