After a year or so of general bumbling about in the library, grabbing research done by others in the family and banging our heads against the wall in frustration we are going for a session with a genealogist this weekend. MrsB has been wanting to plot out her family tree for years (blame Who Do You Think You Are) but has been hampered by a lack of any useful information to kick us off with.
Like many other so called free resources, a lot of the census details and birth records available online only give you a brief summary for free and request payment for the full story. The trouble is we have been reluctant to part with good cold cash without knowing whether the end product will have been worth the investment. And while a couple of her cousin's have gone back five or six generations on their branches, we have a big black hole when it comes to her Dad's family. This is not helped by the fact that her Dad is no longer with us and even the surviving aunts and uncles don't seem to know much about their own parents, never mind further back.
I'm hoping a bit of professional help will guide us to some useful sources and show us whether it is worth signing up to some proper sites or not. Of course I have a feeling that we will need to devote some proper time to a trip up north to rummage in physical records, which will be emotional as we've not been back since the funeral.
For my part I'm not really bothered about where I come from. As with the good lady, one of my relatives has done a fair bit on one side of the family and we have a big gap on the other that will need a trip or two to Denmark to sort out, but I don't really feel the need to know. Maybe I'll get bitten by the bug properly when I'm older, but for now am happy to act as detective for the Mrs.
