52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

A few years ago, at the end of the Holiday season, where we had been visiting with family, I sat chatting with my mum. Somehow we were discussing her regrets about not having asked her mum more about her family history. Mum talked about how her and her siblings knew all about her father's family history, and they just never asked their mum about hers. And Granny never told. They met her sister (their aunt) once or twice, and one of the brothers (their uncle), but they didn't really know anything.

I had always been 'Ancestry-curious', and now I had an excuse! I decided that I would make it my mission to find out everything I could about my maternal grandmother's family, put it together into a sort of book, and gift it to my mother for her next birthday, or next Christmas gift.

That was 6 years ago, and since then I've not only worked on a pretty good history of that branch of the family. I've also worked on my father's paternal branch, and have done a lot of work on my husband's tree as well. Recently, after another visit home, my mother and I found an interesting letter in a mass of paperwork relating to my maternal grandparents, which led me to finding out more about my maternal grandfather's branch of the family. Apparently there was a history there that my mother and siblings didn't know about.

As this Holiday season draws to an end and in the grand tradition of New Year's Resolutions, I've decided this year to try and make more sense of our family tree. I wanted a way to present the stories that I've found in our family, so that I could more easily share them with my kids, and the rest of our family. This led me to the decision to start this blog. 

Once that decision was made I asked in a couple of genealogy Facebook groups. I wanted some ideas on blog hosting sites and such like. This is how I ended up with Blogger, but of course, when you ask one question, very often another gets answered. One member replied with a suggestion to check out '52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks'. They said that it was a great source of inspiration for them when they started their blog last year. I took a look, and it really does seem like a great idea, and its free, so if I decide to go 'off piste' and write about something else, it's no loss.

So, here goes nothing, which actually feels quite BIG..... wish me luck!