WANTED - A Few Moments of Your Time

Chris at " As You Were"  is requesting a few moments of our time   to complete a questionnaire on our family history activities and thoughts.  

Chris wrote:
WANTED – A FEW MOMENTS OF YOUR TIME…
Working with family historians/genealogists daily, I see the same questions being asked on a regular basis. I often wonder what has led this or that person to researching their ancestry.
No prizes for answering the questions below… but it could be of interest to all of us who help others on a regular basis.
You may answer on your own blog, in the comments section below or on Facebook which will have a link to this blog.

Please let me know if you answer on your own blog, so I can keep a list for others to follow… no time limit…

************

Here is my contribution

1. What is the most important detail you want to find about your ancestors?First the basic facts and then the background to their lives to build up a rounded image of them.
2. Do you buy certificates?Fortunately a lot were already with the family,  but in my early days of research I bought  birth and marriage certificates to confirm details and advance my research back a generation.
3. Do you belong to a paid subscription site, if so, which one?“Ancestry UK”, "Genes Reunited" and "Lost Cousins", plus  “Find My Past” and "Scotland's  People" (pay as you go).  Like to many other bloggers, I have reservations on the Ancestry family trees, the mistakes than get perpetuated and the photographs that get lifted without a courtesy request first.
4. What has been your ‘best’ find?
   Where to start!  Discovering my G. Grandmother's eventful past;  renewing contact with my mother's cousins and seeing the first and only photograph of my  G. Grandfather;  my blog resulting in contact from newly discovered third cousins (one in USA);  discovering wills  of my GGG and GGGG grandfathers in Lancashire Archives;  discovering through the local historical society the earliest photograph I have of my father in the school football team.   I could go on and on.....
5. Who is your favourite ancestor and why?It has to be my great grandmother Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe. It was her photograph that started me off on the family history trail - one of eight sisters,  she went on to have ten sons and one daughter and is the source of many of my early blog postings,  Then there was the discovery that she as born on the same date as my daughter - 114 years apart, which seemed a wonderful coincidence.
    
6. What are you looking for on a regular basis?
   Easy to answer - the birth certificate of my maternal grandmother. Alice Danson, nee English, who died when I was a baby. .  Her marriage certificate and death certificate confirm her birth year as 1884 and I was always told we shared the same birthday.  I have her father's name but am no nearer finding out her mother's name, despite lots of different efforts, including using a professional researcher.   
   
7. Do you belong to any genealogy group, or family history society?Lancashire Family History Society for my own ancestral interest.  I live in  he Scottish Borders and joined the local FH society to meet like minded enthusiasts and improve my own knowledge of FH research and resources. 
   
   8. Do you belong to any Facebook or other social media genealogy groups? Would you join if there was one available?
   I am not a Facebook enthusiast and have never gone down the road of Twitter.  Perhaps I am missing out here.  www.geneabloggers.com remains my main network site.
   
   
   9. Have you ever volunteered to transcribe, index etc.? Would you be interested in doing so?I have indexed the magazines of a local historical society.  Poor eyesight is a barrier to me doing transcriptions as I do not find old hand writing easy to decipher.  
   
   10. What is your personal reason for being involved with genealogy/family history?From primary school days I have had an interest in history and how people lived in the past.  Seeing the collection of old photographs (see below)  in my grandfather's house was the prompt to finding out more about my ancestors.  I also wanted to write about them so there was a record for my own family.  To a large extent writing has taken over from researching, though I love the detective story element in hunting for facts and corroborating them with evidence.  Now I am concentrating on writing FH narratives to depict this ancestral trail and feature the documents & photographs I have collected over the years.  My blog,  begun three years ago, was an  opportunity to develop my writing skills further - and I have never looked back.  The support and comments from fellow bloggers and"online" friends has been invaluable - I would not want to be without it! 

THREE OF MY MOST PRIZED FAMILY PHOTOGRPAHS



My great grandmother Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe with her
granddaughter Annie Maria Danson


 

              

                   The only photograph I have of my great grandfather James Danson
               sitting merrily in  the stocks at Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire .

                  

                My aunt Edith and my mother Kathleen Danson  are the little girls
at the front of this parade c.1912.