A Family Hobby

What with the time I spent in Canada meeting and staying with relatives, it also gave me something of a stronger interest in researching my family tree. I admit that it's always been a fascination with me - i like the idea of delving into the past and seeing where i came from. Anyway, with the advent of the internet and sites such as ancestry.co.uk, this has become somewhat easier and a few years ago, a key missing link in the generations for the UK was provided by the publishing of the 1901 census online. Armed with some information that i had gotten from both my grandmothers before they passed on, I set about nosing into my family tree. And it had me hooked.

Now, a week or so later, i've managed to trace the four major lines of my family back to the early 1800s and from all over Yorkshire, Northumberland and Norfolk. I find it somewhat mind-boggling to look at the list of great-great-great-grandparents that i've managed to figure out and ponder the fact that i wouldn't be here if it wasn't for this combination of 32 people. Of course, as well as going further back, i've also been endeavouring to follow the branches back down to my generation as well (to find second, third and fourth cousins etc.) but have only been able to get so far (i.e. the 1901 census). What makes things even more difficult is the sheer size of families back in the 1800s. One of my great-grandparents had 12 brothers and sisters, and some of them had families of 8 and 9 kids as well and so on. It makes me think that, somewhere in the UK, there are a lot of people that i'm related to in some way or fashion. Hmmm, i wonder if any of them are well-off?