Anyone doing or have done a family tree and have any interesting stories?

I've always been interested in researching my family tree but have a word of caution about doing so.....

My Aunt put our family tree together earlier this year, relying mainly on internet sites for info. One such site claimed my father, who passed away last year, was actually born a year earlier than he'd told us / we'd thought, making him 82 when he died, rather than 81 as everyone thought. This didn't sit right and started a few concerns and low-level family rows.

Turned out the internet site in question, which claimed to hold a copy of Dad's birth certificate which they could send us, at a fee, was wrong. Someone had done some half-arsed research and posted something inaccurate and this caused a lot of family anxiety. The birth certificate copy would've been something equally inaccurate.

My advice if you're going to research your own tree - rely on family members to fill in the gaps and use legitimate sources for other bits as there are companies out on the www who are making £ from seemingly helping you but perhaps without any accuracy.

The Wolf wrote:

Willthiswork wrote:Anyone doing or have done a family tree and have any interesting stories?

Do you have any interesting stories about your Family Tree?

Looking back the 'families' have been related to the Colston's of Bristol and also the PM that abolished slavery. Another interesting 'relative' was Culpepper who had a 'relationship' with one of King Henry 8ths wife.

Looked into my family history in the 90’s when aunties and great aunts filled me in with dates and names to get me interested.This was before internet when I had to sift through microfiches at Newport Library and then down in the basement of County Hall looking at old Parish registers.Monthly Family History meetings at the Civic where day trips to Somerset House and other locations were organised.It was slower finding information back then but more enjoyable when you found things.I went back to the 1700’s in some of my ancestors,no one of note but everyone had a story to tell no doubt.

Using sources available on the internet, such as census records, most people could trace their family back to people born in the 1700s. Unfortunately, the Irish records have been lost. So anyone with Irish ancestry will find it much more difficult to go back that far.

FreeBMD.org.uk is a good place to start. As in the name it costs nothing and gives good practice. The fun is in finding out for yourself. In my experience the records are entirely accurate and can be relied on.

Thanks G. Guest. I volunteered as a scribe with freebmd years ago. I really ought to get back into that.

Freebmd gives the three month period that a death was registered but not the date. Is that accessible via freebmd or will I need to subscribe to one of the other sites?

FreeBMD will not give you precise dates. The information on there is limited to what's in register that they uploaded. I always had to apply for a copy death, birth or marriage certificate at the General Register Office if I was particularly interested in an event.

If you have not already done so, clicking on the spectacle symbol alongside the BMD search result will bring up a facsimile of the Registration book. The references to this give you the information necessary for GRO to find the entry. You can apply on line of course. And there is a fee.

Thank you.

Another type of family tree for me
When my daughter was born August 1997 I planted an apple pip. (golden delicious)
The tree is now in a pot in my garden, growing well, been through 5 house moves and even though I do nothing to it apart from water it, cut a few scruffy branches off it and keep the pot weed free it is growing very nicely. Last year it had about 30 apples on it

My sister has been studying the family tree for at least a quarter of a century. She has followed two distinct trails, the South Wales and the Manchester arms (mum and dad).

Her research has taken her to many a parish church all over the Wales and England to dig out and study archives. One trail leads to Utah with the story of a third great uncle, born in 1844. His wagon train was attacked by plains Indians with eight people dead and 100 head of cattle stolen and wagons being offloaded quickly by terrified travellers.
Another sad episode involved a male member of the family killed in a rock fall in 1868 at a Gloucestershire quarry and later, around 1887 in South Wales, a bigamous marriage.

More recently concerning both my sister, previously mentioned, and her husband, my brother-in-law, (top man, County season ticket holder) – his dad and ours were both blown out of RMS Lancastria, anchored of St Nazaire whilst embarking soldiers that were being evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940. Dad hung onto his mate until he passed out. When he came round his mate had gone. He never got over it. Both of these hero dads are gone now of course.

And Uncle Merv who fought the Japs in Burma. He had to cross the Irrawaddy river whilst being strafed by Zeros. He was in charge of a donkey called Scotty, which bit Uncle Merv on their first meeting. After a hefty whack on the nose Scotty became a bit more docile! Uncle Merv is still with us and used to love coming with us over the County.

If you have got this far, thanks for your time. I suppose we all have a story to tell eh?

Blimey ,your sister certainly did the business there!
Fascinating stories..thanks for sharing
I must locate a massive tome by mothers side with the Scuse (various spellings) to investigate my Cornish connections