Family History

I have recently started researching my family history.

Its a great way to pass plenty of time. I mean you start with a name and you try and work out who is related to you and then you get stuck and have to try a different track. It can take you hours to work out and you end up with so much paper work. But I have found some really interesting facts.

To begin with, one of my relatives died when she had an illegal abortion that went horribly wrong. The woman who did the abortion was subject to two years hard labour after being found guilty of using an illegal instrument inside a body. There was a Coroners hearing and everything. I some how think that at 17, she should probably have gotten married and just had the baby, but instead due to the family and societal attitudes at the time, this young girl died in the prime of her life. Today she would have been allowed to have the baby and just be a single mum, but back then she would have been shunned.

Some of my relatives died before they even started life. Lots of infant mortality, people had big families because some of them died before they even reached 5. It reminded me a lot of Charles Dickens and the lives that he wrote about. Couples having large families so that there was someone to look after them in their old age. Makes sense then, but now, isn't that what the government is for?

Family history is an interesting way to understand your place in the world. But I am learning something more valuable than just names on a page. People are only that - names on a page - until their stories come to life. The young girl who died after an abortion, the kids who dont make the age of 5. The way that people lived and what they did for a living. It makes me keep wondering who is the world before me. What were these people like and am I anything like them? Who knows, but I can't wait to find out......