Because sometimes it’s not easy to tell. Family history research sometimes feels more like a game of pin the tail on the donkey, it might take a couple of tries before you finally manage to pin that tail in the right position. This was a lesson I learnt very early on in my first attempts at research. It was a very important, and costly, lesson. There is nothing more frustrating to think you’ve found Great Aunt Petunia’s birth record. You duly order a copy of her birth certificate, pay for it (don’t forget this important fact), and then wait patiently for it to arrive and then you see it can’t possibly be your Great Aunt Petunia – your Great Aunt Petunia’s father was named Gerald, this Petunia’s father is a William. I can’t tell you how disappointing that is.

So how long ago did I first learn this valuable lesson? Well, I first dipped my toes in the waters of family history research over 20 years ago. If we want to be more precise I can in fact tell you the exact day I started on this journey – 24th September 1991. I know this because recently I found my original notebook, where I had neatly written on the front cover “Julie – Family Tree Course”. I was 24 (for those of you able to add two numbers together you will now be able to work out how old I am!) and I had signed up to an evening class being run by the local college.

Flicking through my notebook I can see that I went each and every week, starting each week on a new page with the date right at the top (what a good student). It looks like the course ran for the term as part the way through my notebook I have written, in large capital letters, “NEXT CLASS 7/1/92″. I obviously went along for the next term too as I have regular entries up to 26th May 1992. I clearly then took the first of many family history research sabbaticals as the next entry is not until 3rd October 1995, more than 3 years later. This pretty much seems to set the pattern from that point on, weeks/months of intense research followed by a few years of nothing. Ok, ok, so some of those breaks lasted more than just a few years.

A lot has changed though since that day in September 1991, both personally and genealogy-wise.

Personally, I went from being single, to being married with three children, hence the long breaks perhaps…? And in terms of family history research things have changed beyond recognition, although some could argue that this applies to me personally too! When I started out computers were barely being used (remember I was using a notebook and pencil to record all that I did) now I have the internet at my finger tips and many, many online sources of information available.

So what about now, and why this blog? Am I back in the phase of weeks/months of intense research, shortly to be followed by a long break? I hope not, this time round I’m hoping for more of a slow but steady period of research. And to help with this and to keep the motivation going, this time I figured I’d blog about it. Record the journey, share the ups and downs of research, perhaps share any other tips or lessons I’ve learnt on the way. I also thought I’d highlight and share the stories of some of my ancestors I’ve managed to piece together over the years. And who knows, perhaps someone out there will read this and discover that we have some shared history and more connections will be made…