This week, my spare time has been consumed by delving into my family tree to see how much can be uncovered within my 14-day free trial period at a popular genealogy site, which can be simultaneously satisfying, pleasurable, infuriating and immensely frustrating.
There are many pieces of the historical jigsaw missing and although i have found the odd snippet here and there, connecting them all together has thus far been a fruitless task, not entirely unexpected as i know these researches can take many years and little will be discovered in a couple of weeks.
Finding details on people from the 18th or 19th centuries appears far easier than those from more recent times and most of what i have comes to a grinding halt after the 1901 census, leaving a gap of several years between those i definately know of and those i merely suspect of being partly to blame for my existence on this earth.
I'm pretty sure that my paternal ancestry centres around a small farming community in rural Wiltshire and has been present thereabouts for several hundred years but as yet i can prove no evidence of romps in the haystack, frolickings with buxom young milkmaids or beastly goings-on that may have unsettled the livestock.
What cannot be discovered can, of course, be invented and should i find myself running into too many brick walls or blind alleys, then i shall resort to creating my own history which i can promise will be absolutely packed with foul deeds, illicit liaisons and intrigue...after all, it may just be the truth anyway, with my own imagination merely picking-up on inherited genetic memory.
