Genealogy. What A Waste Of Effort.

[bainbrig]

Well, no-one is that interested, are they?

I’ve wasted years of my life trying to find out what Uncle Charlie did in 1925 (for instance).

[bodeker]

It was only when both my parents were gone did I realise there was so much I wanted to ask them. There is no way of finding out things from years ago, everyone has gone. Sad.

[Zacs-Master]

Found it fascinating myself. Found 6 other people with my name down thru the centuries who I didn't know existed. Found out my mothers surname should be something completely different due to an illegitimate birth. Found out most of my direct family came from somewhere about 2 miles from where I worked at the time (which was about 40 miles away from where I was brought up).

[bainbrig]

Good points, bodeker, Zacs - but in a way that's my point. Your researches (well, Zac's, anyway), like mine, uncovered things fascinating to me - but who else?

Mrs B chimes in that it keeps me off the streets, which is true-ish... the point is, I think, that as my time runs out, I am more and more concerned about wasting it!

BB

[woofgang]

If you enjoy what you are doing its not a waste of time

[jno]

as bodeker says, it's something people tend to take up (as I did) when their second parent dies and they realise they're the last one to know anything. I've privately published everything I know about my family's history, to save my son going through the same thing.

If a moderately thorough search doesn't reveal what Uncle Charlie did in 1925, I just leave it to one side. It might come to light later (a remarkable amount does) or it might not, but it's pointless to imagine you'll ever know everything about anyone. I can't even remember what I was doing myself in 1980.

[bainbrig]

Yes, woofgang, but still that lingering doubt - those four hours I'm about to spend collating family addresses in west London - couldn't I be doing something more useful with that time?

[jno]

usefulness isn't the only purpose in life. Enjoy yourself.

[bainbrig]

(a) I've done a similar thing with my surname - put a page on the web called 'The molestrangler (or something similar) family', and I do get responses to it from other molestrangler offspring.
(b) yes, enjoyment is great, but not if you could be doing something more useful. It can't all be hedonism, surely.

BB

[dannyk13]

If you pursued a useful life before retiring then just enjoy yourself without feeling that enjoyment is a guilty pleasure.

[Peter Pedant]

// It was only when both my parents were gone did I realise there was so much I wanted to ask them.//

you are doing this for yourself and no one else so stop if you are bored. I sat under the dining room table and listened to my father recounting his POW experiences to his pals ( who had all been thro the same thing) - and remember a lot. My brother was there too and remembers absolutely nothing not even that he was there a lot of the time.

My brother asked me to write it down so he could tell (orally) his grand children so I fell to the task, and when I asked him how it went down, he replied:
"Foo ! it seemed ever so long, that I didnt start. I mean foo it was pages and pages, and I thought to myself this is long this is ...." No he is not a member of AB

[ToraToraTora]

BB you want to concentrate on what happened in the 70s me old china!

[Peter Pedant]

// It might come to light later (a remarkable amount does) or it might not, //

some do and some dont - Pedant isnt that common and someone from Canada put on the internet that her grandfather went to Canada via Sarf Efrica but she thought it must be untrue.It is after all not on the way and there was a bankruptcy involved....

and I was able to say - oh no that was MY grandfather and they were brothers. (1850). Another came up with a will b 1784 and d 1860 which left two hundred knicker to his son in Pretoria - so that identified my gt grandfather....

[Peter Pedant]

// BB you want to concentrate on what happened in the 70s me old china!// foo ! you do, me old chyne ! foo again

[woofgang]

that's interesting PP, my sibs ands I all remember the same events very differently.

[Peter Pedant]

as a ex POW Woofie - my father took my sibs to Paree and met the White Rabbit, 1957. I didnt - I was too young
yeah the resistant who was fearfully tortured by the germans (wir haben Shelley ! the cry rose from the Gare du Nord when he was arrested, with a note in his pocket - "onze h, quai quatre" which was kinda stoopeed and incriminating) and Yeo Thomas had gained almost divine status in Paree by the fifties with the ancients combattants
His surname Yeo Thomas, was different to his SOE name the White Rabbit ( yes played by Kenneth More in the fifties) yes after the Cary grant film of the name where only Cary could see him, and was different to his nom-de-guerre - Shelley.
Shelley ( or the White Rabbit)'s chief was Wavrin who used to answer the phone a Paree avec "allo - Passy!" Yup his nom de guerre was Passy. Did the French Resistance REALLY behave like this in the forties ? no wonder they got caught

[Old_Geezer]

Hobbies are their own reward. Discovering things are also. If enjoyed it's no more a waste of time than anything else. If not enjoyed why do it ?

[bainbrig]

Thanks for the interesting answers, particularly from Mr Pedant, whose replies are often fascinating, if a little barmy. But I am hugely interested in his stories, and his father's, and so on.

Unlike those of the various Angry Old Men (and women) who infest this place, and whose comments only ever express their ongoing anger. I do sometimes wonder whether the AOM (and w) were angry young children - whether they were angry when they were, say, 10-year-olds, or whether it has come upon them over the years, and if so, why...

On the whole, I think I'll try and balance current 'useful' deeds with those which are pure hobby!

BB

[jno]

The White Rabbit was only ever screened the once, that's all the BBC had the rights to, and I never saw it.

http://filmdope.com/forums/96603-white-rabbit.html

The invisible rabbit was Harvey though, and it was James Stewart.

[10ClarionSt]

From what I was told, by relatives on both my parents' sides before they passed away, there is nothing in either families history. But it's what you make of it. Each to his own. My next door neighbour spent years researching his family history only to find that they were all just ordinary folk, like the rest of us. Nothing remarkable. Except.........his own personal experience in the army in Cyprus in the 1950's, when he was travelling in a personnel carrier that hit a land mine. Everyone except him was killed. He also took part in something called The Battle of the Barn, along with an Irish regiment. He still has a limp from his injuries. I suppose there are many stjories similar to that from military veterans.

[jno]

Clarion, that reminds me, the Who Do You Think You Are people wanted to make a programme about Michael Parkinson. He said it would be a waste of time, there was nothing unusual about his family, but they pleaded, so he went along with it. Sure enough, he was dead right, nobody had done anything remarkable - nobody sold into slavery, nobody winning the VC, nobody dying pitiably of TB in the slums, nothing to make him cry on camera. So they never broadcast the programme.

But family history, for non-celebs like us, isn't about finding VCs, it's just about finding out what you can about your own family, and how times change. At the very least it's an education in istory, though whether that counts as "useful" is up to you.