What I have learned so far

  • introduction

    I have set down here a few conclusions I have arrived at as a result of undertaking this journey through my family.

  • hard work

    The process of researching is arduous and time consuming. The task is made more possible and fruitful having an expert co-worker. Bryn Harries, who also happens to combine that expertise with web designer skills of high order, has been my mentor in this quest. Bryn can be contacted via his website Parlicoot Design

  • what's in a name?

    It has become clear to me that there really isn't any one name that is more important/contributory than any other from the past. What was interesting was to unearth the other surnames that have made an equal contribution, on each past tree level, to my genetic inheritance.

    Additionally interesting was to find that the name White was one adopted by one of my great-grandfathers whose original name was Wasser.

  • we are all mongrels/immigrants

    Although I can trace one or two lines that go back more than two hundred years as `english' there is a mix of many `nationalities' over each generation leading to the inevitable conclusion that I am a mongrel and a descendant of immigrants. What's new?

    It is also inevitable that most of these lines going back are, for practical purposes, dead ends for that reason --- though not less important than those that are traceable.

  • how little we know

    In nearly all the discoveries, especially those more than two generations back, how little we know of them as people. Apart from birth, marriage and death details (BMD) more information is hard to come by. To know one of my great-grandfathers was a grocer is something but I would hate to be described by just one word.

    Deductions can be drawn from some structures and relationships which have a fair degree of reliability. Sometimes the best that I can manage is a plausible explanation.

    In attempting to flesh out some of the incidents in the lives of some of my closer relations I realise that it is tempting to make judgements. But my experience of researching my parents and grandparents lives, in particular, has persuaded me to try to see the events in their lives in the context of the environment that they lived in.

    The conditions of their environmment aren't always knoweable and the effect of such environments can only be truly described by those who lived through them.