I had never really given much thought to my family tree before I had to give up my job as a Radiographer, with back problems. Oh sure, I knew something about them, things I had been told by my parents, and grandparents when they were alive. I "knew" that my father's father had escaped from Poland at the start of the 20th Century (not quite correct); I "knew" that my mother's grandfather had flaming red hair, and that having the surname of Evans almost certainly meant that he was Welsh (he wasn't); I "knew" that one of my father's uncles was famous, and had even heard him on the radio playing his harmonica (he was); I "knew" that my maternal grandmother had been born in Worksop, Notts. (she wasn't). It's amazing though, just how much you "know" about a family until you come to look at it in depth!
It was sheer coincidence which got me started tracing my family history. For one of his birthdays, I had bought my husband a course of golf lessons. He had played for years at his local Municipal course without ever having had any formal tuition - he could hit the ball as far as John Daly, but had no control over the direction it took! The lessons were at a local golf club, and the professional was quite impressed with Mel's power, if not his style - once he had completed the course, he decided that he ought to join the Golf Club in order to be able to play regularly. Once he had got his confidence up, he started playing with other members of the Club, and soon became friends with Roger, whose wife Jackie was a schoolteacher. Roger and Mel would play a round on a Saturday afternoon, and then Jackie and I would arrive as they finished to have our evening meal there.
One Saturday, Jackie said that she wouldn't be there the following weekend, as she was going to a Family History Fair. I asked her what that was - I'd never heard of it before. She explained how she had been doing her own Family History for years, and visited the Fairs in the hope of finding books about places or people she was interested in, or old photographs and postcards, or new books and aids to doing her research. "How do you go about it?" I asked her, and she told me about visiting Family History Centres near wherever you lived, and the Public Records Office in London. "Oh," I thought. "If that's all there is to it, I'll give it a go. Something to keep me occupied whilst I'm not able to get about too well. Easy peasy!" I thought. How wrong could I be.
The easiest way to go about tracing your family history is to start at the beginning, and ask questions of your living relatives - unfortunately for me, my mother and all my grandparents were dead at that time. So, I started with what I did know - the marriage of my parents.
John Desmond Styles & Elsie Marples
9th December 1950
Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield.
For a more comprehensive Family Tree, visit my Tribal Pages at http://tribalpages.com/tribes/lindak53
