My great great grandfather, that is.
Until eight years ago, I didn't know the name of my forebears. (I mentioned once on another thread that I am adopted) Anyway, my half-sister contacted me and all was revealed.

Doing a little research, I have discovered that he was born in Edinburgh. His father was a solicitor before the Supreme Court there. - and for some reason in 1853 he came all the way over the sea to Sydney.
Remarkably, through Trove (online) at the National Library site, I have been able to piece together a little of the fabric of his life.
He was the Sydney manager of Goodlet and Smith. He married a lady who had emigrated from Worcestershire. I read the death notice for their first son who died at six from bronchitis, and for their second son who died at twenty and for their infant daughter who died at four months..."Dearly beloved child"....
I read of births as well, and house sales. I gained clues as to their origins. Four of their seven children survived, and as they were from a certain class, great great grandfather had " Esq" written after his name.
The thing that struck me was how real this story seemed - I could almost feel mid-nineteenth century Sydney bustling about as I tracked their progress through the newsprint years.

Just wondering if anyone else has had the same feeling of "connection" when learning of the lives of their ancestors.

yes Poirot, it does. I researched my family tree and got many pleasant surprises. Most notably was how romantic fiction was woven through the thread of facts and where certain behavioural traits came from. It gives me a much better idea of my composite make up as the sum of my history, allowing me to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Dear Poirot,

Tracing family history is fascinating and
definitely puts things into perspective.
We recently received a book from Lithuania
which was sent to my husband. It's his family
tree, that a family member there had researched and
published. My husband was fascinated with what
he learned and he can now pass it onto our
children. I intend to research my family history
some day soon. It would be interesting to connect
the dots. My brother is doing his, and so is his
English wife. We're a varied mix in our family
from Lithuanians, British, Swedish, Germans, Russians, and
of course - Aussies.

Pitot, it should be fun, as long as you don't mind what you find.

About 50 years ago an aunt of mine started the same thing. We all knew that my great grand father was a gentleman. An officer in some corps, that had come out with one of the early governors. This suited her inclinations to snobbery.

However, when she discovered that he had married one of those dreadful convicts he was supposed to be guarding she lost interest in the whole process.

Dear Hasbeen,

That is a good aunt story...very funny.
Many people actually hope to find a convict in their lineage.

However, it's true that you do seem to gravitate toward the more notable figures...even for a bit of a leftie like me. I've had loads of fun because my forebears were of a certain class - which also makes them easier to track because as we know, that class was the one that did all the recording, so they tended for the most part to write about themselves.
I've found a transcript of my great great great grandfather at the trial of the man who killed James Boswell's son in a duel. It was great to be able to read my ancestor's words. His cousin carried out the autopsy on Napoleon on St Helena... I've also found Kirk records stating that several of these notables had illegitimate children - for which they were admonished and then absolved.
It's interesting to see the different mechanisms in place to oversee conduct in society back then. Government interference was much less than it is now because the churches had much of the responsibility for that sort of thing.

For me, it is very gratifying because up until I learned the names of my forebears I felt like I'd just landed on the planet from nowhere like the opening frames of Mr Bean.

Foxy,

My half-sister is half Estonian - her father was an engineer who came out to work on the Snowy Scheme.

Poirot
There is something quite primal about tracing one's family tree. My Aussie Grandfather did quite a bit of research on family, going back to a convict who I believe stole a bit of rope (why anyone would want to steal rope is anyone's guess). Grandad traced his family back to Nottingham, and the Irish in the family on my Grandmother's side came from Eniskillen.

There is a creek named after my Grandmother's Irish ancestors in NSW where they were well known in and around the gold fields and then farming. Oddly when I visit that area I also feel a strange sense of belonging (could be completely pyschological of course).

There was that simplistic sense of standing on ground that one's ancestors stood on. After researching those international locations, there is also an odd attachment to places I have never seen.

It says something about the human psyche that we reach out to the past to know more about who we are and about those we come from.

Researching ones family history can be intriuging and addictive.

I have traced my family back to 1650 and cannot go further unless I go to UK or pay someone there to do it. But lots of info is now on line which is a big help.

My family spent about 150 years in the one villiage in Bucks, which helped a lot as once I got hold of the transcribed parish records it was a matter of working out who was who.

Funny thing was that the first born are nearly always premature and I can't explain why this is. After that it is one every couple of years and lots of young mums died from childbirth.

For those of Uk ancestory, for abit of fun enter your surname into the search box of 'Old Bailey' and see what comes up. I found criminals, victims and witnesses in all sorts of situations.

But it is addictive, I have suddenly realised to was 3 or 4am on occasions.

Hi All, fantastic thread Poirot. My great great Grandmother and Grandfather were from Omagh in Ireland [moost be the Irish in me sometimes and family loyalty] explained. The other side are from Coventry as records in London revealed by an Aunt who travelled there; a bit of pommy thrown in, and my mothers father's side a mixed bag of European heritage. All of the surnames that came up in the family trees are quite interesting and turns out I may be related to my childrens' father way back; scottish lol.

I started my family history when I was 25 years old. I found it both intriguing and frustrating at the same time.

My lot came out from Ireland and England. One was a convicted arsonist brought out to W.A. on a convict ship. He burnt down a haystack on a Protestant landlord's land (he was a Catholic peasant from County Clare, Ireland).

The most frustrating thing has been the fact I have never been able to find the name of one female ancestor. I know who her husband/partner was, but apparently this man had several liaisons in the early 1800's in England, and fathered several children out of wedlock.

Oh the shame and horror all this caused my Grandmother (their descendant)! As a good, clean living married woman, she suggested that maybe I had my facts wrong!

There are so many threads when you start searching. I've been searching through the line from my mother to her father and then down the male line from there - although once I reached around the 1750's I switched to another line through the female side as this lot were particularly interesting. I'm now in Dumfriesshire at the turn of the seventeenth century and I've found a whole lot of names associated with the "Border Reivers" who were were various groups and clans from that region who for several centuries made, and were the victims of, raids from the north of England. Should be interesting to follow up....

I haven't had to pay for any of the information I've gathered so far. I prefer to ferret out things for myself and search through directories and registers if need be. I found my great great grandfather's birth date and his father's address during the early eighteen hundreds by searching through the full text of his school, the Edinburgh Academy. Then I was able to do a google search for the house in Gloucester Square - so now I have a picture of the house they lived in...great fun.

Richie,
I agree that there is a feeling of romantic fiction attached to searching in the past. Searching through old newspapers, I found a notice in the Sydney Morning Herald for my great great grandfather, informing him that letters were waiting at such and such a premises - this was around the time he arrived and confirmed for me that I had the right bloke because it named his ship...on the same page were pieces inserted by various immigrants trying to contact relatives they had not seen for months or years...and further down the page was an advertisement for gigs and saddle horses from the Royal Horse Repository...it really brings it home how different was life back then.

Hi Suze,

It's very frustrating when you can't find the information that you're after, and sometimes it's best to put things on hold for a while and look at something else.

I have very scant information on my own father except that he was American, possibly with some American Indian blood. I have a name but not sure of the accuracy of the surname - and haven't been able to find any leads. Still, I'm not worried as I have so much more knowledge than I ever thought possible - I'm now supplying all my new rellies with information because none of them have ever bothered to look into the family line.

Illegitimate births were part of life then as they are now - and somehow life went on. I've had a ball looking through centuries of Dumfriesshire Kirk Sessions (where they dealt with that sort of thing) and it has been so interesting - one fellow was made to stand outside the church in a sackcloth for several Sundays in a row...and then to stand before the congregation and acknowledge his sins...lots of stories like that.

Strangely, with almost no exceptions, my discoveries about my ancestors have left me feeling more disconnected than connected.

Until the 1950s, nobody in my dad's family (apart from my grandad) had left the area surrounding Swansea in South Wales. In fact, it appears that my family name originates in that area, though it is derived from a patronym of the type often used in Wales. He travelled, joined the navy, worked on the Snowy scheme and then moved with his wife and two kids to Africa.

Likewise, nobody in my mum's family seems to have ventured far from Yorkshire until the 1960s. My grandparents packed up, moved to Africa, stayed for twenty years or so, then moved back to Yorkshire when Rhodesia went to the dogs. They and all my rellies on my mum's side are back in their homeland.

Thus I am part of the isolated nuclear family that ended up in Australia, with lives bearing no resemblance whatsoever to those of our ancestors or even our present-day rellies. It doesn't make me sad, but it does emphasise (in my mind) the fact that I'm not one of them. In many ways, I am a pioneer in a new chapter in my family history. My kids will be part of the first Australian-born generation of my family. What the future holds for them will be anyone's guess - but I doubt they will find much in common with their ancestors, just as I haven't.

The one pleasant surprise was the recent discovery that my great-grandfather served in Gallipoli (as part of the Royal Navy). In a way, that knowledge has helped to connect me with that annual ANZAC Day ritual, which I have always respected but felt detached from. Until that discovery, it always felt like I was honouring someone else's ancestors - borrowing someone else's history.

So there you have it.