Hi, my name is Jean and I am a Family History and Genealogy aholic!

My downfall all began around 35 years ago when I got hold of some family documents and made my first tree, that was when I started to be hooked.

I seemed to have it under control in the beginning, I could go for periods and never touch it, but gradually I needed to do research regularly, without it I was a mess.

I knew I was getting addicted but couldn’t do anything about it.

Now it has got to the point where I just can’t do without it every day and if I don’t add members to my tree I have such feelings of inadequacy.

I have finally admitted to myself that I am a family history and genealogy aholic – but – I couldn’t care less. I have no wish to be cured, and I am going to carry on just as long as I can.

All joking apart, there should be a health warning with Family History because it definitely is addictive and once you have tasted the pleasure and excitement of making your first discoveries you too will be in the same boat as me.

Unfortunately it can run away with you if you get connected with existing pedigrees. The inclination is to just go on and on adding new members to your family tree, as many as you can find, getting your tree number as high as possible. When you find yourself doing this – get a grip!

You are not the first one to discover royal and aristocratic ancestors, there are millions of people who will have these connections even if they are not aware of it. It is fun yes, but doesn’t really have a great deal to do with you and your immediate family. I will admit to feeling very thrilled when I discovered my first royal ancestor but when you have added literally hundreds of royals and aristocrats the euphoria begins to wear off.

I am still totally hooked on Family History and don’t think I am still not thrilled and excited to have all these people dangling from my tree, but I have had a reality check and have gone right back to the beginnings of my research and am now going over all my first research data. Trying to find out more details of the few generations back from me.

It is sometimes very hard to come up with anything other than the bare birth, baptism, marriage and death details about a person, but wherever I can I am trying hard to find these extra details.

I may not be able to resist going back to the pedigrees and just adding a few more to my tree eventually  - well I’m only human!!

Do you sometimes sit in front of your computer, wanting to get on with your Family History research, and you simply cannot make up your mind which line to look at? This is happening to me a bit lately and I don’t like it.

I have so many lines to follow, all ongoing, and there are times when I just feel a bit overwhelmed by it all. My tree stands at the moment at 25,600 so you can imagine I have an enormous amount of names to cover.

It’s just a case of taking them all back a step at a time, I pick one and find that I still cannot take it beyond where I was when I was researching that particular name before. So I try another one and the same thing happens. I just sit there and think – now what!

Have I gone as far as I can with them or should I just stop thinking about it and get on, pick another name and give it another go. I think I am probably in ‘research doldrums’. I am becalmed, I am making no discernible headway and it is causing me a lot of frustration.

What do you all do when you hit this situation? How do you re-motivate yourself? Perhaps you don’t get like this, but if you do and you have any good tips on how to get out of this mindset I would be very pleased to hear them.

I am still passionately interested in my Family History but just for the moment I feel like I am treading water. I just cannot settle to any one name, I am fluttering about, chopping and changing, and this is just not the way I normally work at all.

Perhaps I should leave it all for a week and come back to it, hoping my mind will focus better. I love looking out for my ancestors and really feel links with them – but not this week.

I have visited a lot of cemeteries/graveyards in the 30 years I have been family history researching.  I have never felt spooked at all, I just feel as though I am visiting a relative.  In fact, I find them relatively tranquil and a place to take your time and soak up the atmosphere.  You certainly will need to take time because some searches are more difficult.  If you are visiting the graveyard attached to an ancient church to find your ancestor, you may find the grounds quite unkempt.  It is nothing to be wading knee and sometimes thigh deep in grass and weeds, I am talking here about the UK.

It’s a sad fact that some church precincts are not looked after, lack of money I am sure.  You certainly need to take certain things with you when you know the graveyard you will be visiting in your ancestor search, is an old one, maybe even a redundant church.  Some of these redundant churches are looked after by heritage authorities and are kept in relatively good order, but other’s are not.

With some you feel you should have brought a scythe with you!  You certainly need to have a stiff hand brush to use on the gravestones [if they are quite old].  They get covered with lichen and the writing is all but obliterated.  Even though taking a photograph works with newer stones it’s not possible with the older ones.  You need to brush them down even to get to read them.  Sometimes you have to feel the letters even to interpret what is written there.  On some it is virtually impossible to make out the whole epitaph, but if you can at least get the name and dates that is something that you didn’t have before.

I visited one some years ago which was a redundant church – not being kept up by anyone – and it was positioned in the middle of a field.  I had to park my car and walk half way across an acre field to get to the church and graveyard. It was completely surrounded by a high hedge, and when I was looking round the relatively small graveyard, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps it was not such a good idea to place myself in such a solitary position.  I confess I didn’t linger long in that particular churchyard, there wasn’t anything there for me anyway.

Usually members of one family are placed together in these old churchyards, this does not seem to be possible in the large city cemeteries. Unless individuals are placed within the same grave, they will not be togetherand this can make your family name history search difficult. In the older graveyards you probably will find one gravestone and then the others are usually nearby.

I usually take note of their position in relation to the church, which side they are situated, how many positions from the church, and the extra graves with the same surname I take note of in relation to the main one I found.  This helps if you need to visit the graveyard again for any reason.  If you couldn’t take a picture for other family members to see, they may want to see for themselves.  I have done that before, taken older family members to visit any graves I have found.

Concerning the newer cemeteries you can apply to the superintendant to give you a plan of the cemetery with your family grave number marked. It’s relatively easy if it is a family grave and you have the number, but even so they will have a surname index which should help.

You feel quite strange when you do find a relative’s grave.  It’s a very nice feeling though, it places them into context in your mind, taking into consideration the place where they had lived and worked and been buried, this is all part of tracing family trees.  I love going into the churches also and perhaps sitting where they may have sat in their time.

Religion played a bigger part in the lives of our forbears, in fact way back, it was illegal not to go to church and there were people appointed by the church to make sure that you did your duty and if you didn’t you were denounced for this.  It was quite a disgrace.