I began writing short biographies of 20 of my female ancestors in 2015. My aim was to write about my family history in a way that would be meaningful for my descendants - in terms of their interests and the ways they search for information. Family historians accumulate names, dates and places, going back and sideways as far as records will take them. There comes a point when this all becomes a bit meaningless. You want to understand their lives too, especially the ones who are your direct ancestors, because they are most likely to have had some kind of influence on who you are today. Hang on a second, you say, I never knew any of my great great grandparents, not even one of them. How could they possibly have made a difference to my life? They just handed down their genes, that’s all. Well, the circumstances of their lives influenced those of their children, your great grandparents, which in turn… You get what I mean now, don’t you? One of my feistiest...
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