Researching my family tree is a great interest of mine… and thanks to lots of others in the family who have shared what they know I’ve done quite well. There is nothing more thrilling than finding a ‘lost’ ancestor whose name was mis-spelled on a census, or finding a previously unknown distant uncle or aunt who went on to lead an interesting life.
Most of you know how much I love Ireland, and I’m learning Gaelic to add to my knowledge and understanding of this wonderful and ancient culture. It is assumed by some people, that in the past people didn’t move around much. Wrong! People were travelling around all over the place, mostly in search of work I would guess, much as people do now. Some may have travelled just to see new places, some people might have moved for love – or to escape an unhappy marriage. People travelled hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles, although I agree that there were some families who stayed put in their ancestral village. My grandfather-in-law was born and lived in and near the little Surrey village of Bletchingley; but from what I have traced, his family moved over a dozen times… and that is only what I have discovered through documents and records accessible to me!
So with all this travelling about and voyaging to different countries, and emigration and immigration… wouldn’t you think that among the 2000+ people I have in my family tree, there would be one ancestral link to either my husband or me? The nearest I have come is a cousin of my husband’s great-grandfather who married a man whose grandmother came from Ireland, probably County Wicklow. So a distant cousin-in-law, or a third cousin three times removed (I think) was married to a man whose grandmother was Irish… And that is the best I can do!
Was his dad’s cousin married to a half-Irish man?
Lois Elsden 