Firstly an apology to anyone out there who actually takes the time and trouble to read these. It has been a while since I have managed to write anything and I have no excuse for this, just a case of not enough hours in the day!
When I started my family history journey, I naively assumed that most of my ancestors would be found in a small area in and around the Central Belt of Scotland. My Dad was a proud Glaswegian and my Mum was from the Falkirk area. On my wife's side I assumed her family would all be centred around Sheffield and the surrounding area. How wrong I was!
Both families have been spread far and wide across the globe, from Scotland to Australia and North America and from Yorkshire to South America. Even those families that stayed within the UK have moved over the years.
My Dad's family didn't come to the Glasgow area until the late 1870s when my great great grandfather took up the ministry in Rutherglen. Before that they had lived in a small village, Kirkcolm, in Wigtownshire where he was the Free Church Minister
The family were actually from the Borders, in and around Yetholm in Roxburghshire and my 3 x great grandfather was a land agent who actually moved around the Borders and North East England with his work before finally settling in Bishop Auckland in County Durham.
Even my own father moved away from Glasgow and came south because of work settling here in Yorkshire. My uncle travelled even further for work as he worked and lived in West and East Africa for a number of years.
My great grandfather, Frederick Lakeman, was born in what is now Sri Lanka in the 1850s. His father was a coffee planter. Fred was orphaned along with his 5 siblings and they were educated in England before he returned to Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and married the daughter of a hotel manager who was born in Leyton in Essex!
My wife's family have always been proud Yorkshire folk thinking their roots were firmly in and around Sheffield. Her paternal great great grandfather was actually from Staveley in Derbyshire where his father was a farmer and her maternal great grandfathers were from Lincolnshire and Norfolk respectively.
Families tend to move for work or to seek a better life. A number of relatives have taken the bold step to actually travel much further than the big city. Some journeyed to the other side of the world chasing gold in Australia and New Zealand or the promise of riches in the Americas.
Knowing where families settled can influence your choice of what records or subscription sites you might use. As a canny Yorkshireman brought up by a Scotsman I am always looking for where I can get free records if possible. Subscription sites are a great asset but can be expensive so I have tried to choose those which offer me the best overall relating to the areas in which I am researching. It would be great if I could afford to subscribe to every site.
The other thing to remember is that the amount of records available online is a fraction of what is out there and you still can't beat the surroundings of an archive or library reading room surrounded by dusty old registers.
As well as finding out about the people I also like to find out a bit about the towns and villages where they lived. What influence did they have in the local community? Were they in any positions of authority or power? Newspapers are a great source of this information. I have built up my own gazetteer of all the places mentioned in my research. Some entries are quite brief, others can get quite lengthy especially if that branch of the family chose to settle rather than just pass through.
It is important not just to get to know the people but also get to know about where they lived and how they lived. Just as location is important when choosing where to live it is so important on understanding the people and surroundings in your family history.
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