Robby

Family tree

Saturday, January 19, 2008 6:44:07 PM

For a few days I've been obsessed with my family tree. Let's see how it all started...

My great grandmother is (Jeanne Verherstraeten) is staying in an elderly home for about a year now. Every now and then my grandmother and father, or my grandmother's sister takes something from my great grandmothers home to their own home. And they are right, as there are a lot of valuable things in my great grandmothers house, and now nobody lives there, it can only be stolen. It's better to find a new home for all these belongings.

I'm very glad my dad brought 3 old photo albums with him. I've seen them before a few times. There are a lot of old photos, some going even back to right before World War I. There a lot of people I don't know in these photographs, and they are (or were, most of them are death by now) family. My grandmother and great grandmother all have nick names for all these people, but to me it doesn't say a lot. Who's Uncle Louis? And who's Aunt Fien? And is she the same as Aunty Fiene? Who's grandma, and who's momma? Who ..... ???

A lot of mysteries to me... So I decided to start making a family tree, not only from my great grandmothers family, but of my whole family. I've been lucky to find lot's of information on digital archives, but these sourcers are running out now. In a next stage I'll have to search for written archives in several city's to trace my ancestors.

One of my oldest ancestors I've been able to find with a complete birthday and day of death is Josephus Verschueren. If I had been born 1 day later, I would have been born exactely 200 years after him. My birthday is 3 January 1984, his is 4 January 1784.

Those who are interested can have a look at my family tree. A few links...
Index page of my Family Tree: Search by first name or surname
My own record in the Family Tree
A real tree with my ancestors and some photos of them

Picture on this blogpage: Egidius Camillus Verherstraeten, the father of my great grandmother of whom I've got the photo albums.

The holiday seasonSouvenirs of the First World War

Comments

Riene # Saturday, January 19, 2008 11:01:30 PM

How absolutely fascinatingly cool!!!!

I loved this entry, loved the photos and the names, so very different from my own family and so European. This program you're using--is it free or is there a subscription fee?

As an American, there's only so far back I can take my family history, and then it comes to a crashing halt. I envy your family, having lived in one area long enough to have records to search.

kerrykerrykait # Sunday, January 20, 2008 2:24:35 PM

This is fascinating stuff - I could get addicted to genealogy

Thanks for the photos - they are windows into time past and thus priceless.

My own family history can be traced to Ireland during the potato famine; my mother-in-law is actually working on a genealogy on her family right now; I don't know how far back she can go.