First up was family research.I had been dabbling with this on Genes Reunited and Scotland’s People for some years now but had never just ‘gone for it’. There are a lot of adoptions in my family tree – my grandfather, my partner, my partners mother to name but three.  So last week I decided to spend two full days tracking down my children’s ancestors. Even with todays technology it isn’t quick. My partners mother supplied her birth certificate showing her birth mother as Edna Wilder. No problem. Genes Reunited found 1300! What they don’t say is that all their search really ‘does’ is include a document that if Edna Wilder was on it, it would be in this particular area/year. First click gets you  a registry entry with about 500 names – none of which is Edna. Money for old rope. All they have done is scan a page ( often badly) and put it under the quarter i.e. Jan, Feb, March of any given year for a short sample of the alphabet. OK, it’s quicker than going to the records office – but not by much. How about putting the actual records into an actual database? Now that would be worth paying for.

I digress. I spent two full days line by line, page by page. Late nights, coffee, wine, coffee. Success!  I tracked down my partners father and a new brother and sister. I also managed to track down my partners mother’s family – two brothers, two nieces and two nephews. OK so all we had to do was verify -that should take a while. Not so – within minutes of contacting all concerned they had responded. Many phone calls, tears and emails later the first meeting is next week.

I’ll reveal more once everyone is agreed, but I am very excited that my partners’ new uncle is a Professor of Psychology at a major London university. He should have plenty of case studies out of all these reunions;o)

Martin and Connor talk tactics

The Galmour twins strike a pose

jamie tries out Adam’s Thomas the Tank Engine