I got a call last week from someone in Morpeth: I think we’re related: can we talk?
When I first moved here, I looked into my family tree. I was prompted by two things: a curiosity about how local I actually was - given that I was an interloper - and uncertainty about a relation in Bamburgh: we knew we were related, our families had always known that, but not how.
I went back to the early 1800’s and managed to find almost all my relations 5 generations back (there was only one fairly common name, Robson, so it wasn’t too hard). There were no obvious skeletons – the BBC wouldn’t want me for ”Who do you think you are?” - but a couple of surprises: I hadn’t known my Dad’s family had been Tyne valley farmers, and there was another John Woodman (who I had never met or heard of) still farming there. My Mum’s family mostly came from round here, with one section coming from Seahouses. I started looking before a lot of information was on the internet and that somehow made it more fun – looking at lots of old ledgers and microfiches, cross checking and so on just like a genuine researcher.
I had gone straight back through the generations, I hadn’t gone sideways. So when my new relations came round to go through everything I learned even more and discovered a whole series of new Woodmans. I dug out some old photos of my grandparents on Bamburgh beach when they were young. Apparently there was a family likeness to the distant cousins.
My mother was never particularly interested in the family tree – it was more important to her to look forward. But to me, knowing the past sets life in context. I looked at the diagrams I made of the couple of conversations when I tried to extract information from her. One great uncle of my Dad’s was described as a “bad egg”. But we went on to other people without me finding out the reason. A couple of years ago I wrote WHY? next to “bad egg”. I will probably never know now.
When I first moved here, I looked into my family tree. I was prompted by two things: a curiosity about how local I actually was - given that I was an interloper - and uncertainty about a relation in Bamburgh: we knew we were related, our families had always known that, but not how.
I went back to the early 1800’s and managed to find almost all my relations 5 generations back (there was only one fairly common name, Robson, so it wasn’t too hard). There were no obvious skeletons – the BBC wouldn’t want me for ”Who do you think you are?” - but a couple of surprises: I hadn’t known my Dad’s family had been Tyne valley farmers, and there was another John Woodman (who I had never met or heard of) still farming there. My Mum’s family mostly came from round here, with one section coming from Seahouses. I started looking before a lot of information was on the internet and that somehow made it more fun – looking at lots of old ledgers and microfiches, cross checking and so on just like a genuine researcher.
I had gone straight back through the generations, I hadn’t gone sideways. So when my new relations came round to go through everything I learned even more and discovered a whole series of new Woodmans. I dug out some old photos of my grandparents on Bamburgh beach when they were young. Apparently there was a family likeness to the distant cousins.
My mother was never particularly interested in the family tree – it was more important to her to look forward. But to me, knowing the past sets life in context. I looked at the diagrams I made of the couple of conversations when I tried to extract information from her. One great uncle of my Dad’s was described as a “bad egg”. But we went on to other people without me finding out the reason. A couple of years ago I wrote WHY? next to “bad egg”. I will probably never know now.
3 comments:
That sounds fascinating. Something I would love to do myself. My relations are rather scattered I'm afraid but I'm sure with a lot of hard work and a good internet site (!) I could get there.
Crystal xx
My number 1 tip, if you are ever likely to prepare your tree, is to talk to as many of your elderly relations about their relations as you can: I didn't and missed a lot of fascinating stuff.
And number 2: watch the internet site. My grandpa's family was transposed from original documents as Carter, Carteret and Carruthers in three successive censuses in the 1800's.
Yes, I guess the internet does have its drawbacks. Most of my elderly relations are passed on now. Thanks for the advice.
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