I spent a good portion of yesterday, when I wasn’t cooking and cleaning, writing a Samhain ritual for our pagan group.
Samhain literally means summer’s end and marks the start of the dark half of the year, winter. It is a time to remember those of our family, our tribe, who have left this earthly plane. This includes ancient as well as recently departed loved ones, and always gets me to thinking about my ancestry.
Over 20 years ago now, my father and I researched our family tree and managed to go back to an individual who was born in Sutton Coldfield in 1596. In those days (20+ years ago) there was no option of net research, you physically had to get yourself to the appropriate archives to access the records where they were kept.
Our search took us to libraries in Rotherham, Sheffield, Dudley and Warwick amongst others. We mainly searched my maiden name along the paternal line, following the surname back through the centuries. I would now like to try a wider search, following my mum’s side of the family to, but this will now be mostly online.
Last year I did one of those DNA tests and was quite surprised to find very little variety. I didn’t expect anything very exotic but I thought most people had a little variation. Mine stated my DNA is 95% UK, and not only that but 95% West Midlands and 5% Sweden which most have I think. So hopefully it shouldn’t be too difficult to trace us!
Narrow Dreams 