How did you start down this road? .....

[JimM]

I was frequently asked: Are you related to

David Livingston, the explorer
The Mayor of London or
Jonathan Livingston Seagull?

Got a bit weary of having to answer "I haven't a clue", so decided to find out.

Catriona

k Then your name would be Livingston ..... I presume

Jim

[CatrionaL]

Good thinking, Jim

Best wishes

Catriona

[joette]

Not a Spanish GGGGranny but both sides claim to have had a Spanish Sailor in there somewhere but I have yet to find one...now maybe somebody ran off with a Spanish sailor that sounds more accurate.
Any relation to David-Catriona?

[Ina]

I got involved in research in 2001 when my mother died. I found among her papers, the original 1879 marriage certificate of my great grandparents.

Being curious, and never having heard mention of these people, I went searching for information on them. First think I did was get the 1881 census, and was surprised to find out that one of them came from the Isle of Islay and the other from Jura. I had always assumed that the family had always been Greenockians.

Last year I made the trip to Islay and walked down the streets where all the ancestors had lived and raised their children.

Ina

[CatrionaL]

Any relation to David-Catriona?

Joette

Not on the Livingston side as far as I can see. However his mother was a Hunter from Shotts and 2 of our Livingstons married Hunters from Shotts. Who knows?

Catriona

[SarahND]

My mother's mother died at her birth in 1916 and her father died the next year. Her adoptive mother refused all overtures from the birth relatives (including offered photos ) Fortunately, one of the nurses who cared for her in her first 10 months before adoption saved the letters from family, so we knew my grandmother's' name, her parents names and the name of a sister; also my grandfather's name, profession and cause of death. Since my grandparents were not married and my grandfather had another family, my mother was hesitant to look too hard for her cousins and half-siblings, thinking that they might not be glad to know of her existence.

Somehow, one of my sisters started searching for clues on the internet. She had too many other things going on in her life to pursue it at that time, so I grabbed the baton and ran with it... It seemed to me utterly unfair that my mother at 86 years old had never even seen a picture of her parents. Someone out there must have one! So I began to trace the line down for living descendants of both her parents. I'll never forget the day my grandfather's face began to slowly download in my email program... and there were my brother's eyes staring out at me! I forwarded the photo to my parents-- my father printed it out and my mother sat there all day looking for the first time at her father's face...

Then I had to somehow find her mother... The story in the family had always been that I must look like her, since I don't look like anyone else! After finally tracking down a third cousin who reportedly had boxes of photos, I drove 800 miles and spent a long day blindly scanning them all into my computer. I knew that none of the labeled photos were my grandmother, but scanned all the unlabeled ones as well just in case. When I got home I showed my family the results, "Do you think any of these are likely?" and got disbelieving stares-- "Are you kidding? That one looks exactly like you!" I held it up to the mirror and there was my face and hair in a 1912 setting!

So yes, I'm completely hooked, no escape now...

[Fergie]

Hi, I got started through being fascinated as a child be the tales of the great uncles and grandparents. Great-uncle in particular was reknowned as a teller of tall tales and the family told me not to believe a word he said. They were a Scottish with distant Irish ancestors family but Uncle Phil told anyone that would listen that we were Scottish through and through on the Currie side and had an ancestral home somewhere up the West Coast called "Brucknamukner"!!!!! well thats what my mother and I think it sounded like. Well I have never been able to discover if Uncle Phil's "Brigadoon" existed and there is nothing I can find on any map and my Grampa used to say he was right about the muck bit as Phil didn't wash very often! I as a six year old loved Uncle Phil and didn't like it when everyone laughed at him. He had a thing about dressing up in full Highland dress and going to ceilidhs and he could speak as if he came from the Western Isles (he drove a delivery van in Glasgow and lived there all his life) God knows what he told the people at the ceilidhs. Someone from the Isles once asked him "Are you a Coll man?" and Phil replied, "No, I'm in fish and fruit".........Well I thought it was funny.

[AndrewP]

My brother inherited a family bible and a box full of old photograph albums that had passed through the family. He set about identifying as many people and places in the photographs and I copied the birth, marriage and death information from the family bible. It seems that my great-grandfather was a coachman, and later chauffeur and his work took him around Scotland, where he took many photos, some of places and some of people. Most of these photos date from the first quarter of the 20th century.

From there I have discovered the names and records of over 1100 relatives, mostly long deceased.

I remember as a child my father rolling out off-cuts of wallpaper and drawing family trees on the reverse side of them. Unfortunately these must have ended out in the bucket and he died before I started this quest. I will never know how much family knowledge he had that died with him. So when I started my research, I recognised many of the names, particularly surnames, that I found in the records.

Along the way of my research I came across a very distant relative who holds another family bible for my "Downs family" branch. I must make contact again and hopefully venture out to Slamannan and photograph these valuable pages.

All the best,

AndrewP

[mallog]

I started about 20 years ago after my Mother died (Father was already dead). Why do so many of us wait till our main source of information has died ?!!!! My parents had been treated like Black Sheep and either side of the family did not approve of the other. Why ??? Anyway one came from Glasgow and one from Edinburgh (both sides snobbish in their own way but not my parents). My Mother's mother died giving birth to her and her father was never heard of again but I have a feeling the Edinburgh lot saw him off. My Mother was brought up by an Aunt and her Grandmother (both widows ). I don't think she felt like part of the family. As I never got to know many of my extended family I decided I needed to know about my roots. Back then I made infrequent trips to Edinburgh. Why did I not start when I stayed in Edinburgh 10years before ?!!! Oh I wish my parents were alive now - the things I could show them. As has been said the internet etc. has been a great asset and has really opened up so much to us all and I must say this is the best board I have come across - it's got wit and wisdom.

[AnneM]

Hi all

One of my aunts who has since died was interested in researching the famly but never got very far. She was I think convinced we had upper crust ancestry or at least relatives. Just as well she did not get very far!! She was also in search of the Lord Mayor of Belfast who was reputedly an uncle/cousin of my grandmother's. The Lord Mayor with the correct name has since been identified but I have never found the connection. Doesn't mean I'm not still working on it.

Just a few years ago a friend at work mentioned SP. I went on the site and from that moment was hooked. Needless to say I did not read any hints and tips before starting so wasted more money than I care to mention.

Now I chip away at my own FH when I can though it's definitely a chipping away job, have researched that part of the kids' ancestry which is not mine to the best of my poor ability (again a chipping away job), done some work on husband's ancestors who were all from the South of England (now that so much more of that is on the internet will have to get going on the English research again.) and done a wee tree for a couple of friends. In fact when I find mine frustrating and think I've gone as far as there are records, I'm prepared to beg anyone I know to let me have a go at theirs so that I can get my teeth into some quicker results and good discoveries.

This may be heresy but I think the best fun in FH terms I've had was the days I spent in the record office in Winchester looking up anything to do with husband's Hampshire and Wiltshire bods. They have a terrific online catalogue and I see that they have more documents that I am itching to get my hands on but sadly no prospect of a trip South for a while.

I may be a sad soul but put me in among the OPRs or in a record office for a few hours and I am happy as a pig in muck This should earn me the saddest nerd of the year contest but the time in the record office in Winchester was when I was on honeymoon. However the marriage has survived thus far!!

It's great to be on a site like this because so many people's eyes glaze over when you mention FH and why not after all. It would be a sad world if we were all intersted in the same thing!

Anne