GENEALOGY. 202

Hi John, I think the interest grew from listening to all those stories I heard in my Grandmothers house as a child. (The invasion of Ireland by the Spanish Armarda - that's where the black hair came from they said. And the hanging of the Rosary beads overt the side of the boat which calmed the storm on the voyage to Australia. And how my great grandparents have to runaway to Australia to get married because she was Catholic and his father was a Church of Ireland minister). It was all so exciting and romantic - of course after 40 years I still haven't got any proof of those particular three stories.

Also as the eldest of 38 cousins on my mothers side I always had a great interest in the Christian names pbutted down the generations.

But I think what really drove me into research instead of just acceptance was when a letter came to my husband to be, when I was in my early 20's, from someone wanting help tracing the Beaumont family from Tasmania. That started my collection of .oh so expensive BDM certificates when you had to guess the date and pay half of the going price for the certificate if you guess the wrong five years. It was very expensive back then.

Two of my children have some interest. One wants to trace herself back to Jesus - she's the youngest of course!. And the oldest wants to prove he is descended form St. Margaret of Scotland via the Plantagenets' (and he might be onto something there).

Not really much reason for an excuse these days if one has children because part of the grade 5 subjects is a family tree, sometimes with interesting additives like colour of eyes etc. Hope this dissertation answers your question. Mary

johnf