Family -not quite done- history

After nearly twenty years of research.  Off and on again work and guilt coming from the work done by others and not by me I can tell you that family histories are a labour of love.  Twenty years of reading microfilm,  holding records older than my great great great grandfather, and trying to discern names from Welsh language tomb stones are treasures of my life.

Anyone who has had to bend their tongues around names of places in non-English lands knows the pain of spelling and mangling the names our Ancestors bore and lived in.   Often in history there has been a focus on the great, those men and women who bare a significant part of history or played a role in larger events.

The querks of family history

So lately, having not that much to do and lots of time on my hands.  So to keep myself occupied I have been working a bit on Family History.

In fact I would suggest anyone starting out would be well advised to read Ardis’ work which was a very good primer for those who are struggling with the basics.

My first experience with an “ancient” record

In all the years I have studied history or family history I had never really experienced up close and personal what real old documents looked, felt or even smelled like.  I have mostly seen them in books, microfilm, the internet and on Television.  For most of my life that was as close as I had ever got.

When I was 30 I decided to move to Wales, it was not a snap decision, it was one made after a year of consideration and prayer.  As well my wife and I discussed it a lot and agonized over it.  She worried tremendously about it and I felt driven by what I would call the holy spirit, that I needed to go.