I have been working on my Family History for about 10 years now and what started out as a solitary task to ‘discover my roots’ rapidly turned into an obsession that has encompassed many thousands of discovery miles, locally and abroad, and the finding of many, many like-minded people, some closely related, many with the same surname and even some 2nd cousins-ten-times-removed!

They come from all walks of life, aged nine to ninety nine, they offer you information, help with research in their own corner of the world, (which was once your ancestors hometown) amazing stories and the hand of friendship which all genealogists offer. Like any group of people who share the same hobby we all have an instant ‘bond’.

We are all obsessed by that elusive great, great grandfather who emigrated to Australia, and may or may not have amassed a fortune or the one who died on the poppy fields of Flanders who has heroic stories to tell. Or like my own relation whom, early on in my quest, I found a birth for on 3rd October 1857 in the Southwold Parish registers and then ...nothing else for years. All the other siblings I had marriage and death records for but Charlie was not giving up his story and I guessed that he must have died young or at a relatives house somewhere else in the country and was buried there.

That is until I was doing an internet search late one night a couple of years ago into ships lost at sea and I came across the story of The Eurydice, a Royal Naval three masted training ship which sank in a freak snowstorm off the Isle of Wight in 1878 all but two of the 366 men aboard died, probably in the freezing seas, and among them was my elusive Charlie at just 20 years old, a massive discovery for me but touched with sadness over the years at how his parents and siblings must have felt at the news.

The journey along the ancestry trail is never dull, you will find relatives who were ‘in service’ (miles away from their place of birth), doctors, teachers, factory workers, mariners, some poor souls who have fallen on hard times and ended up in the Workhouse (Shipmeadow or Bulcome) and even one ot two in prison!

Nowadays finding a ‘Black Sheep’ in the family is far more exiting than them being ordinary farm workers.......I have great pride in my ancestors lives and being a part of age old fishing families and brave lifeboat crews.

If this article has spurred anyone into saying “I’d like to do that” then decide which line of your family you would like to trace, mothers or fathers, gather as much information from living family members as you can, then begin your tree. With a little bit of luck you can get back 150 years which is about 4 times great grandparents at least to 1837 when it became legal requirement to register all births with the Registrar General.

All these people were here once, we walk in their footsteps and many descendants, like myself want them to be remembered and their stories told......

One of my favourite books Charles Dickens ‘David Copperfield’ has the lines that sums up genealogy “To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born” and how better to begin – with yourself.


If you would like help in starting your own family search, please contact me

Shirely Wilson Tel: 01379 853820

email: shirley.w15@virgin.net

or leave a comment by clicking here, and I will get back to you.
– Shirley