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  1. #1
    Knowledgeable and helpful
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    Default Your place in history

    I don't know about anyone else but before I started on this genealogy lark I would read books on history and see pictures of people in 19th, 18th and 17th century dress and to me it was another world separate from me. It was almost as if I were an alien visitor observing a different species when I read about the civil war or the Jacobite rebellion or the industrial revolution. However since I have been uncovering my families past I now feel a personal connection with those distant times, that people whom I could call grandfather or grandmother (though several greats removed) or aunt or uncle lived through those times, wore those clothes and carried on with their ordinary lives while the great events of history unfolded around them and occasionally swept them up. So now when I read of things such as the enclosure acts, the chartist riots, the growth of the factories, or the battles of the english civil war I see them not as distant, cold events but wonder what GGGGGgrandfather George was doing or how GGGuncle Sampson managed in jail, etc.

  2. #2
    Famous for offering help & advice
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    Concur. 10 years ago I would have felt alien to old streets of London or old countryside cottages as I was not born in that era but since I started this genealogy lark I became attached to it and am very into all this. genealogy is more than just dates and names. I like to find out how people lived, what type of living conditions and maps of the area. That is why I have added many maps of streets and areas to ancestor biographies and overview maps highlighting the parts of London they moved around and overview mas of England showing where an ancestor moved to from another part of the UK like George Coombs from Dorset to London.

  3. #3
    Starting to feel at home
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    Couldn't agree more! But do you find yourself thinking 1880 wasn't long ago? It seems quite recent in terms of family history!
    And how could I ever have been bored by history lessons at school?

    Auburn

  4. #4
    spison
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    I also couldn't agree more. I find myself trying to picture my community as my ancestors who lived here would have seen it and wondering what they would have thought about changes that have been made.
    Jane

  5. #5
    lawsue
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    Hi All,
    I only started this hobby just over 12 months ago, before then I was not much interested in history, hated it at school. What a turnaround. I had no idea of what a framework knitter was or a lacemaker let alone their struggles in Nottingham. I had no idea where any counties in England were. Now the old Brittania Atlas has a life of it's own.So as a sideline, I am finding my way around England.
    I have followed one of my 3 convicts from Spithead to as far as the Cape of Good Hope via the ship's log (more info to come) on his way to Australia. I know the road in Tasmania that I think he may well have helped build.(he was in a road gang) I can picture him when he eventually came to Sydney sitting near the water under what is now the Sydney Harbour Bridge and looking over to the where the Opera House is. What would he think now? Did he break his mother's heart when he did what he did to get here? Did she ever hear from him again?
    And he is, out of all the other ancestors that I have found, my favourite. I have even named a wild galah that comes to visit, after him.Probably because the galah is a bit of a scoundrel.
    Sue

  6. #6
    anamarja
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    Many of my ancestors came to Australia from the gentle landscape and climate of the Isle of Wight and other parts of Hampshire. I find myself wondering how they coped with the extremes of the climate and landscape that we 'enjoy' here in the Gympie area - winter minimum temps that can drop to -2 celsius (offset by glorious bright winter days where temps rise to 16 or 18 degrees; summers where maximum temperatures can (but don't often) reach 40 celsius; we can go in a matter of weeks from drought to flood. Given these extremes and including the dress standards of the day, I truly don't know how my ancestors coped.

  7. #7
    Famous for offering help & advice
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    Now to me even 1780 does not seem long ago. 1880 seems really recent as then was when we saw censuses, BMDs and school records and directories as well as parish registers. WDYTYA is one of my fave programmes and seeing all these celebs trace their ancestry is fascinating and they visit record offices that I have been to. I did sort of laugh when John Hurt found out that he was not descended from the Marquis of Sligo. At the end he was very peeved that it was all a tale. His surname lived up to its name with the truth Hurts lol.

    I have ancestors from Dorset to Durham and like just having normal people. i dont research for glory.

  8. #8
    Knowledgeable and helpful
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    Default

    I love the fact that my ancestors are "ordinary" as you put it. Just folk like me getting on with our lives and working away below the radar of world history and yet, with a bit of luck and diligence, still traceable. Proving that you don't have to be a great Duke or King to trace ancestors back 400 years. Mind you you probably won't have many pictures. That is one thing I would like more than anything more photos of my ancestors and before photos were invented if some passing artist had sketched their image for the price of a pint of ale that would be fantastic. Ah I can dream at least

  9. #9
    Colin Rowledge
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    What I enjoy the most is when I find a family that on the surface were 'most ordinary' but one or more menbers of said family were 'different'.

    I am currently chasing after a chap, born in 1840. At age 18 years 1 month, he fibbed about his age and on September 5, 1858 he joined the Royal Artillery and by 1859 was a Gunner deployed to East India, where he served with a certain amount of luck for the next 21 years until his retirement as a Sergeant on June 15, 1880. Along the way,from his service records, he saw lots of action and had the good fortune to marry the widow of another comrade on December 4, 1872. This was in Madras at Fort St. George. Their 1st child was born prior to their marriage and sadly died before the age of 1. Their next child was born in 1876 and died 3 months later.

    This is a fascinating life that he led and am I am hoping to find out a lot more about his engagements in East India during the 21 years.

    Colin

  10. #10
    bamagirl
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    "Some are born great and others have greatness thrust upon them"... or something like that. I find, though not entirely, that I come from a long line of folks who have siblings who have done notable things. Actually, that does make tracing back through the inky deeps of history a little easier. "Why canst thou be more as thine brother?"

    I find myself increasingly wandering back to simpler times and try to place myself in the shoes/slippers of my ancestors. I know I would be comfortable in the mid-19th Century. I could even see myself in the late 18th century. Much before that, I don't know. I would have been the person who died from an infected paper cut or something that today is totally trivial.

    Barb

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