Roller coaster ride

[usignuolo]

When my brother and I started out researching our family tree, we did not suspect much would come to light. Our father was one of only two siblings whose father died in WW1. However we steeled ourselves to expect the unexpected and boy did it turn up.

We started with our great great grandparents, worked back to their parents and thenforward to our parents. We assumed we were basically English and in fact found we are of English, Scottish, Flemish and Swiss extraction. The great great grandparents had very large families, between 8-12 children. (And they were all Protestants). The reason our father was one of only two was of course because his father was killed in the Great War.

Not only that we found that our great great great grandparents had lived in Holland and there are Dutch relatives alive today. Plus some had emigrated and there are living relatives in Michigan and Louisiana. Turns out we are related by marriage to one of America's leading political families of the nineteenth century. Others went to Australia and there are relatives there too.

Not everything was welcome news, we found out we were descended from an illegitimate son of a young daughter so we have no idea of who our grandfather was at one stage of our family tree. On the other had our great grandmother later married and had a large family so there are also a whole load of relative we never knew about and who never knew about us until now.

Who knows what else will emerge. But it has been a roller coaster ride so far.

[MarkCDodd]

That is part of the fun.

Some people are scared of "skeletons in the closet" or "black sheep" and so never do their tree.

They are part of the family history and fascinating to me.

It is interesing when you see how far they spread.

I have just found a branch of my West Bromwich Cutlers moving and living in Peru of all places!!!