Family History/Genealogy

[JFWinstone]

I was wondering if there were any other people interested in family history/genealogy on the forum? I have been researching my family history since 2005. I originally started to find my biological father and to learn more about my Mauritian grandfather's family as I never asked before he passed away in 2003.

I found my father in 2006 and my research has helped him a lot as he didn't know too much about his own family. I confirmed the Dutch ancestry that he had heard about on his mother's side from Noord-Holland, Friesland and Groningen. Further back some of the branches going back to Hamburg, Southern Denmark and Belgium. I still have a lot of brick walls on my father's paternal side in London some suspected Irish and French Huegenot there.

The Mauritian side turned out to be a lot more complicated than I anticipated due to difficulty accessing records. Though with the help of the Mauritian genealogy society CGMR I have been able to get a few generations back on that side but nowhere as far back as my mum's Dorset side. I'm only a generation short of the last generation to be born into slavery in Mauritius on that side of the family and there are some slavery registers on Ancestry but I just need to find out the parents of the generation between to find out the names to look up but I'm not getting replies from the civil status office to my enquiries (been trying since way before covid so that's not an excuse). My mum's maternal side is mostly from the West Dorset/Somerset/Devon border region with some Cornish a bit further back that I've found so far.

My mum and I took DNA tests on Ancestry, 23andme and FTDNA back in 2016/17 and learned a lot from that, we were told we were African and European growing up but it turns out we're a lot more Asian than we are African. My mum came back about 32% Asian (Chinese, Indian, Southeast Asian), 18% African (Mostly Southern and Eastern Bantu) and 50% European (English). My dad took a 23andme test and came back heavily British & Irish with some French & German, Scandinavian.

It has been a very challenging and rewarding process so far, I have so much still to work on in my tree it's one of those things that doesn't really have an end

 

[Jaylee]

Hi,

Yeah.. Well. My mum told me, some romantic story about my great grandfather?
Ironically, The guy had a band & came to the UK from Italy met my great grandmother, got her pregnant thricely. (My grand mother being the youngest of them.)
Then he went back to Italy.
There was no actual certainty my GGM ever married him. But he did return briefly wanting to put the kids 2 girls into a nunnery & the middle boy, the priesthood???

He sounded like a bit of a "free spirit" whilst my GGM got ostracised (presumedly regarding the "shame.") from the rest of her family & struggled to raise 3 kids.
But she did have the help from a more benevolent member of her folks. An aunt of hers.
He died on some sort of "mountaineering" exploit? But it could have just been a "daddy's on a oil rig" excuse to the kids..

Now I do have an older sister who's into that whole "Who do you think you are" stuff?

Personally, I prefer doing my music...

 

[Lamont D]

No, I'm not into tracking my genealogy, but a cousin on my father's side did so.
He is my aunts son. My father sister.
My inherited name is Welsh and my line has been traced back to early 18th century, because my GGGGF was a groundskeeper at the manor in
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilliogogogoch. The record of his birth is registered at the county library.
His father is registered but no written record before that.
My father's family is huge. From the nineteenth century there is over a thousand relations all over the world that my cousin is aware of. From North Wales to many parts of the north, the home counties, London Canada, USA, South Africa, New Zealand and about 500 at the last count in Australia. There are one or two dotted around Europe, mostly because of work.
Another sister of my father had 21 children.
An uncle had six children
My eldest brother had nine children.

I know what you are thinking!

On my mother's side, she was born in Yorkshire and my grandfather only moved there because of work, my mother had one brother who I'm named after, my middle name is my grandfather's name, and he is named after his father and grandfather and GGGF.
And there was two sisters. All had children .
The family is Scottish with a branch in northern Ireland.
My mother's immediate family is still mainly in Yorkshire, you know the yorkies? And the Scottish side is very difficult to find.
I also had the chance to get my DNA tested, just to see my make up.
So I thought, I would have mainly Welsh, Scots, anglo, Saxon and Celtic.
I was surprised that my DNA has mainly Nordic, northern Europe, British, no Celtic or southern Europe, because of the Roman empire which was quite large around here. So maybe that is why most of the family have the same features such as when young there is a lot of blonde blue eyes about.
If you look at the northern history around north Wales, Lancashire and Yorkshire, the history of having Nordic, Viking and British is more likely than any other contributors.

My wife is British white, she has five siblings, six uncles, one aunt on her father's side.
All have children. There is a total of nine immediate nephews and nieces, then more than a dozen second cousins and so on.
Her GGF comes from Scotland, with an Irish twist, we couldn't go further back than two generations, her GGF worked in the shipyards on the Clyde, it might be GGGF worked there as well. But the record was damaged slightly.

So you can see my family tree is a forest.

 

[JFWinstone]

@Lamont D My tree is also a rather large forest, I'm the eldest of 9, my mum is the second youngest of 9 and dad is the second youngest of 6. A lot of branches crossing over on my mother's maternal side. More of a web than a tree in places. One of her 2x great grandfathers had 23 children with 4 different wives and that was just the legitimate children let alone all the illegitimate ones that are coming out from the DNA matches. We have a massive cluster of matches who all descend from that one man.

 

[wolfie11969]

I've always wanted to track my family tree to see if childhood stories were correct.

My parents were both born in Birmingham, England but the generation behind is a bit mixed up.

My paternal grandfather was German, a POW in Wales
My paternal grandmother was living in Wales, married to a farmer and when the war ended ran off with my German grandfather

My maternal grandfather was Jewish and was a con man/ trickster
My maternal grandmother was Irish (Belfast) and gave my mother up to her mother and went on to marry my grandfather's best friend

My father was one of 6 with 1 half sibling
Mother one of 10, 9 of whom were half siblings

I'm one of 6 children to 3 fathers
I have 2 daughters - one with 2 daughters herself and my other daughter has just discovered she's pregnant (her father has 2 young children to his second wife)
I have 2 stepsons aged 20 and 22 and they have step siblings too as their mother remarried

I'd hate for anyone to start my family tree as each one of my aunts and uncles have a fair few children between them and then they have children or even grandchildren.

 

[lindisfel]

I've always wanted to track my family tree to see if childhood stories were correct.

My parents were both born in Birmingham, England but the generation behind is a bit mixed up.

My paternal grandfather was German, a POW in Wales
My paternal grandmother was living in Wales, married to a farmer and when the war ended ran off with my German grandfather

My maternal grandfather was Jewish and was a con man/ trickster
My maternal grandmother was Irish (Belfast) and gave my mother up to her mother and went on to marry my grandfather's best friend

My father was one of 6 with 1 half sibling
Mother one of 10, 9 of whom were half siblings

I'm one of 6 children to 3 fathers
I have 2 daughters - one with 2 daughters herself and my other daughter has just discovered she's pregnant (her father has 2 young children to his second wife)
I have 2 stepsons aged 20 and 22 and they have step siblings too as their mother remarried

I'd hate for anyone to start my family tree as each one of my aunts and uncles have a fair few children between them and then they have children or even grandchildren.

Blimey, they were into sharing genes, wolfie!

 

[wolfie11969]

Blimey, they were into sharing genes, wolfie!

strange old world eh?
Diluting the strains

I did question whether I should do a geneology test but reckoned I'd come out African (not too sure I trust them ha ha)