A Bit of Digging

On By Mick CanningIn books, family history, opinion, research

Well, they arrived yesterday.

I have finally got my family history book formatted and printed, and I reckon it looks quite decent. So all I need to do now is to get it posted out to family members.

While researching all this, I naturally made a lot of discoveries. Some were certainly more unexpected than others, though. From previous research my father had done, we already suspected that my great grandfather had changed his name, possibly on a whim, from Prater to Canning. I was able to confirm this by, amongst other things, a comparison of various dates of birth in his family. This immediately removes the possibility of my searching back to see whether my name has any noble / famous / important roots. This is something that matters a lot to some people, although obviously only along the male line, which is why it seems to matter much more to men.

Although I turned it up too recently for the book, I have learned details about my father’s life in WWII which I would otherwise never have come to know. I had no idea – and seemingly nor had anyone else in the family – that from 1940 until joining the regular army in 1943 and being posted to India and Burma, he had been part of what had been dubbed ‘Churchill’s Secret Army’, soldiers trained to operate behind enemy lines in the event of a German invasion of Britain. Fulfilling the same role as the French Resistance, they would have carried out acts of sabotage and hit-and-run attacks to slow the enemy advance. it was only after that threat had receded that he joined the ‘Regulars’.

And then, less unexpectedly, there were the stories of extreme hardship: the early deaths, the poverty, the workhouse, tuberculosis and pleurisy…

Of course, if it was possible to search back far enough, we would all find we had a common early human ancestor, which gives the lie to the importance of race.

Does any of this research really matter? Well, in some ways, no. Does it sound crazy if I say that despite all my work, it does not matter that much to me? I’m very much in two minds over this. A lot of this felt more like an intellectual exercise than a personal quest. It was interesting to find out where my great grandparents and their parents had lived, for this felt just close enough to be a part of me. But before them? And especially when I could discover nothing more than their names and some vague dates? No, not really. Throughout this project I have been especially keen to be able to put names to old photographs, for this seemed the only way to make these people come alive again, or at least begin to. That I’ve been able to positively identify some of them feels more satisfying than pushing a line back another hundred years, although I do have nearly every branch back at least to the 1700’s, but in every case it is the stories I’ve found out about these people that matter.

But back to my question. Does any of this research matter? I do think it has the potential to bring us a little closer to our families by emphasising our shared history, and I’ve greatly enjoyed long discussions with cousins about our various researches and discoveries. But beyond that? Well, I’ve enjoyed learning the social history involved with my family, the realities of how people actually lived in the towns and countryside over the last few hundred years. And as well as emphasising my connection to my extended family it has also, as I wrote a few month ago, given me a greater sense of connection to the land where I live.

I have enjoyed exploring the past, but I’m not going to live there.

47 thoughts on “A Bit of Digging”

  1. You have a great attitude to it all, and it sounds like a great grounding exercise, while not living in the past. We have such a short time here, the past and future have their own place, it’s too easy to spend time in them, instead of here and now. The book looks great, I know the family will find it interesting, even the younger ones when their own thoughts turn to their ancestors.

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    1. I agree. It’s really important to live in the present, otherwise we run the danger of spending all our time second-guessing the future or wishing we could edit the past.

      I know the younger ones won’t really be interested yet, but it is a subject that seems to assume more importance as you grow older.

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  2. Knowing the past, specially family history gives a sense of belonging and of being part of a common heritage. I think what you’ve done is wonderful, writing a book on family history is hard work that not many would venture to do and it’s valuable too. Your father’s war time experiences were such acts of heroism, worth recording for posterity. Liked the post immensely.

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    1. Thanks, Diti. The information I found on my father was completely unexpected, because it arose from something I did think I knew (that he told me) that turned out to be something completely different.

      It was hard work, but it was one way of organising my notes and I felt it would also be a good way to pass the information on to children and grandchildren (and others).

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      1. I’m so glad you did. Facts and information get lost in time if not recorded properly and becomes oral history only. Books like these are important not just for the family but for others looking for information about the life and times of the past, too. Well done.

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  3. It’s difficult to record family history because family members may have different takes on a same incident. So it’s all the more laudable that you’ve pulled off a gigantic task. I hope some day to attempt this too with my family, so I found your experiences very inspiring. As of now, there’s only a family tree. 😊Thanks for sharing your journey.

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    1. My only advice there is the sooner the better. I was very conscious that had I begun my research fifteen years earlier, I would have had another generation on both sides of my family I could have questioned.

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  4. Projects like this take enormous time and commitment, and I suspect the rewards vary according to an individual’s interests. I’ve ended up knowing far more about my mother’s paternal line than any of the other relatives; I know almost nothing about my father’s family. Of course they came from Sweden in the early 1900s, and never spoke of life in the ‘old country,’ so as a child my curiosity never was stirred.

    As you say, the sooner the better for projects like this. With all of my family gone now, the questions that do arise have no one to answer them. Of course certain facts can be established, but the stories are gone, and the stories always are the most interesting.

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    1. The sooner the better, indeed. That’s probably why we seem to get drawn to this in our older years; we realise time is passing and most of the family we would have liked to question are now gone. We realise that unless we do something about it soon some more stories will die with us. (cheerful, eh?)

      I’ve probably discovered more about my mother’s side than my father’s, but that’s possibly because there’s no one else left to research that line and I feel I need to expend extra effort on it.

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  5. Well done. My uncle and aunt did a family tree of my maiden name in the days before the internet ( Dad wasn’t interested and left them to it ) it was fascinating ting to see places they came from, foreshadowing Ancestry DNA telling me most of my recent ancestors came from the south of England! But I have hardly looked at it, real life gets in the way and we have enough trouble keeping up with family that are alive!

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    1. My Dad began tracing our tree over forty years ago and although I gave him some help, I wasn’t really that interested at the time. It was a long, largely tedious process, in those days and progress was very slow. I think it becomes a little more urgent once you get older!

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  6. I can only imagine how much time you have invested in this project! Good job, Mick! It may not matter a lot … after all, you cannot change the past … but it may matter if for no other reason than the curiosity of future generations in your family. And I’m betting you had some jaw-dropping and some humorous moments along the way, yes?

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    1. There were certainly a few surprises along the way, Jill, although I’m not sure I came across anything outstandingly humorous. The more I found out about the various branches of the tree, the more it struck home how desperate many of their lives must have been..

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        1. Cause for concern indeed!

          As mentioned, my great grandfather and siblings appeared not to exist either, but we eventually found my Great grandfather had randomly changed his name after he moved to London and married. None of his descendants appeared to have any idea of this.

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            1. It’s very possible the births were simply not registered. I’ve found several relatives whose births seemingly weren’t. But some records were apparently destroyed in the blitz, and many of the Irish records were destroyed during the uprising.

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  8. I have never caught the genealogy bug. I don’t know how much it matters and if it’s too much in the past to dwell on. If it’s for the cool stories I think it’s sort of fun, but that’s it. Though I saw a play the other night…Leopoldtadt which is about an Austrian family 1898-1955…it showed power of roots I guess which was important in this case

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  9. I think that’s the perfect way to look at it! It is interesting to learn about our family’s history and the people who came before us. We can learn some lessons that way, and also maybe better understand the decisions they made. But I’ve never bought into the idea that my ancestors determine who I am. I believe the is on on me. Good for you for putting your research in a book your whole family can enjoy!

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  11. It’s nice that you’ve compiled all that into a book and are sending it off to family members. It could be a good place for the younger ones to start from in the coming years. I had an aunt who did something similar, and I ended up with a copy via my mother. As it was in text form rather than tree form it was a little hard to follow, so that became my project; to translate it into Ancestry.com and flesh it out a little. But like you, it was more like an intellectual exercise than a personal quest; interesting, but not life changing.

    Incidentally, the guy I bought my house from many years ago was named Prater.

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    1. Probably a very distant cousin of mine, Dave! Well, probably not. Yes, with a bit of luck some of the younger family members will become interested in the Quest as they grow older – it’s what seems to happen.

      Did you come across any very unexpected and / or interesting details in your family search?

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  12. I romanticize the past quite a bit, and when I did some family research years ago – while it was very much like an intellectual exercise, it had my imagination churning, which made it personal. And while I’d dream about living back in those times, the spoiled modern man I am today would not last long 🙂

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    1. Not many of us would, Randall. Much like you, I have a tendency to romanticise the past, although I’m very aware I wouldn’t want to give up all those medical and technological advances (I’d probably be dead by now without the medical ones). That doesn’t prevent me wanting to live in rural Britain of fifty to a hundred years ago, though.

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