Introduction

On the subject of family history there seem to be 2 different types of response.

Some people will discuss for hours the excitement of discovering a 3 x great uncle whose day job was as a tailor in North Wales, but who also managed to become a respected Bard, or the 2x great grandfather who seems to have married many more times than he was widowed. The other response, perfected by my husband is a pained look and a muttered “I don’t talk to half the family I know about, what do I want more for?” Oddly, most of my maternal family are easy to find, and down the centuries seem to go out of their way to leave some small mark of their time for me to find, whereas most of my husband’s ancestors, when they appear at all, lurk in the registers, hiding behind ink blots, and misleading census information as though they don’t want to be disturbed. A fanciful thought, but perhaps the interest in Genealogy really is in the genes!

Be that as it may, enough people have contacted me through my work with questions that can’t really be answered short of launching full time into teaching family history rather than doing it, so I have decided to write this log (very sporadically I suspect) of the every day resources I use and possibly the more unusual finds I make. I intend to be purposely vague about my client’s identities, as it is after all their information. Of course if a client decides they would like me to be more specific in the hopes of finding new leads to pursue then I will