In the final days of Family History Month, Ancestor Detective, shares her thoughts on her journey through researching her family history.
I often get asked why I am so interested and somewhat obsessed in doing genealogy and why when my relationship with my immediate family has been so challenging why I want to research their ancestors at all. I often wonder this myself. As I contemplate this I wonder if it is because I want to find out how I am the person I am and so different to the family I was raised in or if I am researching to find out why my family is the way they are.
Mostly though what I have found is people who leave me proud of how they overcome the challenges of being in a new pioneering country, living in challenging conditions where income was insufficient or woman who raised many children and left to raise their children mostly alone while their husbands were sent down coal mines, were out with their sheep in the middle of nowhere for days if not weeks at a time or building lives for their family by farming and growing crops while living in just shanty’s in the harshest parts of the country.
They are who make me proud! Their dogged determination for life is maybe where I have got that part of me from, that never give up attitude!
My blog reflects the lives of my ancestors from England, Scotland and as far away as Italy, these people lived for their families and would do anything however hard to provide for them and to give their children and those to come after them a life better than their own.
From coal miners to bullock drivers to farmers and graziers these pioneers not only made me who I am today, but the contributed to shaping the country, Australia, to what it is today. The phrase “from dust to driving rain” is just some of the climatic conditions these hard workers experienced. The women in my family lived through not just these harsh conditions but raised large families while their husbands earnt an income, not a great income, but enough to put a roof over their head and food on their plate.
Then there are the sad stories I have come to learn that while they were hundreds of years ago they still bring a tear to my eye. Like a little girl who died from burns after her dress caught on fire while a servant for a family or my Downes family who saw such loss and grief but led to my Pop and his siblings leading amazing lives or my Nana’s family whose mother raised 16 children while her husband worked in the coal mines of Scotland with their sons once of age.
It is not until you start your own journey through your family history that you find these stories that shaped who your family is today. You too will learn of hard work, of grief and loss, of hardship and of new beginnings started on the other side of the world.
Well that’s it for now……
Ancestor Detective 