Welcome To The Waffle-Free FAMILY Stories!
In this show, I talk to Natasha Houseman who is digging into, uncovering and exploring her family tree.
We talk about her grandmother's role in getting her hooked on family trees, how she's giving life to the women in her story, the horrible accident that led to one child shooting another, and right at the end, she gives you THE BEST conversation ice-breaker you'll ever know.
In between all that chat, she talks about the tools and techniques she uses to get as close to the real story as possible, and how she plugs the gaps.
The result of all that work is a blog that she shares with friends and family. Here's the link!
Start with "An Almost Yorkshire Family", and explore the Houseman family tree from there.
Here are all the sites Natasha mentioned:
NOTE FROM NATASHA: These first three are location specific, I would strongly recommend a google search including both a village and a surname - this can throw up a lot of useful local sites, especially where the surname is not that common. That kind of search led me to both the first two sites which have helped much more widely than the particular surname and village I started on.
Links to the particular stories I told:
ALSO...A little something special :-)
Natalie Pithers runs The Curious Descendents Club. The story about "Wid Swinden" inspired a gorgeous poem:
For Natasha.
3 small words
The only thing you own.
Your life grey and dimmed,
Existing only in the shadows of men.
Nameless & dateless.
'Wid Swinton pauper'
Reduced to mere marks on paper,
Made by another's hand.
Diminished to an obscured month
On a faded death register
In an old church
And a lost mass grave.
And yet,
You linger.
Your life a ghost in our veins.
I shall take
Your 3 small words
And dig with them.
Dig and dig and dig.
To find you.
I shall trapse
Backwards and sidewards
Through time
Reaching out to call you home.
Wondering if you can hear me.
And even if I never find one more word
To add to your 3,
In the act of searching,
I remember.
Wid Swinton, Pauper.
Fill your mug with something delicious, put your feet up, and join Natasha and me as we talk family trees.
When the story is done, feel free to meander around https://tinakonstant.com/ for more waffle-free tales and other stuff and nonsense.
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Tina
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