make a family tree

THIS IS HARD.

I’ve made the most progress on dad’s side of the family. I’m as far back as his mother’s maternal grandparents – but we think that they were German, and I can’t find anything on them in Queensland at least, so that will require more investigating. And my grandmother’s father/my great-grandfather was from South Australia, and I haven’t started any research there yet either. On my paternal grandfather’s side, I’m back to my great-great-grandparents. The information I have makes sense to me based on the very little I know about them (my dad was only ten when his father died, so he isn’t too much help either) but I’ll have to check it against what my grandma knows.

My mother’s side is an absolute mess! She just doesn’t know much. Her mother remarried so she doesn’t know much about her biological father, so he’s as far as I’ve gotten back there (though our suspicions are that he and his family were Irish). I’m back to my great-grandparents on her mother’s side, but once again there’s not much to go on. I do however, squee over the fact that my great-grandfather’s name was David Tennant.

Apparently my aunt in England has gone back ridiculously far on mum’s side, but I’m just not close enough to her to email and ask her for all that work straight up, so I don’t know.

Working where I work, I’ve been pulled more and more towards doing this lately. My mother’s sister has gone quite a way back on her side – to the 1600s, we think, so I’m going to email her soon and ask for all the information she can give me, since it might be a bit harder to research overseas events. As for dad’s side, I’m going to sit down with my grandma one day and record what she has to say. She remembers so much. From what I can gather, we’re Scottish and English, with a bit of German, and most of our family settled in Adelaide and Brisbane when they came to Australia. I’d really like to get a bit deeper than just dates and names here, but we’ll see how it goes.