Fuzzy Pictures - memories of a mother past

What makes you start to follow your family history?

Everybody has a different reason for starting to search their family trees for me it was to find out about my mother.

I did not remember much about her, just some fuzzy images that I thought were her, or were mind images that I had created from what I had heard about her.

So when I started looking many years ago, I was lucky to find her brothers and their families who shared photos, stories and themselves with me and my family.

It was an emotional journey, but from that journey I now have images of her that I did not have before, stories about her that made her come to life, things she did that made her a typical teenager, but more than anything I had found an extended family who I had not known were there.

So for me the journey of researching this one line of my family tree, gave me a mother I had not known much about, her life was very short lived in this world of ours, just 32 years of life, but she was here, and in that short life she lived and loved, laughed and cried.

Such wonderful memories I have of her now.

Not all lines or those we follow will turn out to be brilliant, or give us the result that we might be seeking. I was lucky with this line, on another line we found non interest, and people who did not want to talk about their families.

This of course is their right; it is a very personal space that genealogy can take us too. We must be mindful of those who do not want to share with you, who may want nothing to do with you or the research you are proposing.

Do not let it distract you, as you still have a story to now tell and can at least link as much as you can do for that line. You may find that others once removed from the line might be a better source of information.

The one thing for sure with genealogy is, lines keep extending, and your research is never ending. For some you will have remarkable and full notes, for others those notes may only be a few lines. Always remember, those few lines that you put together help to fill the gaps that are missing, and they are as important as the full notes you may have on others.