Rhoda's Blog

A recent visit to see my parents ended up in us all glued to Genes Reunited, as we were adding into my tree a few more details about my Dad's family. The very recent discovery about Chester Wood needed updating and we started to look again into the details of Dad's grandparents. Rumour in the family suggests that Ella, Dad's Grandma was a kept woman, as her husband, Arthur wasn't a ‘family' man. We had their basic details, but we wanted to try and find Ella and Arthur's marriage certificate, as there was uncertainty in the family that a marriage actually took place. We drew a blank, even using variance searches for their names, especially for Ella Trautmann - you can imagine the potential spellings!

Hi, I'm Rhoda and I've been the Head of Genes Reunited for about a year now. Prior to that I was interested in my family history but on talking to relatives it transpired that a bit of the research had already been done, and a few names had been plotted into a paper tree. I want to share with you the journey I have been on over the last year, and hope to share with you my family's lineage as I make discoveries in the course of time. I'm not just interested in building a tree, but also in building the social history of my family. My Dad's an artist, his Mum was also very creative - is there a familial link? My Mum's a nurse, as was her Mum - how many generations does that go back? Are there any names and other family traits that go back down the line? I want to know how my ancestors lived, where and how they died, and how did we all seem to live in and around Nottingham - especially as my maternal Grandad is Irish.