Back in the 1990's our son was sent for genetic testing with regards to his Autism. Sitting in the specialists office my husband and I realised how little we knew about our family history. As far as we knew back then, my husband was a mix of Dutch Indonesian, Portuguese, Japanese, Austrian and Scottish ancestry while I believed my family were predominately Irish with some Scottish on my mother's side. The specialist actually commented that I had a face like a road map of Ireland!
To us our family trees were tiny saplings with a couple of branches and questionable root systems. I could tell you that one of my Great Great Grandmothers was almost 105 when she died in the 1970's, that a Great Great Grandfather was a hero during the Gundagai floods and found a major gold mine but I couldn't tell you their names or any other details about them. My husband's family was even more of a mystery! The Second World War, civil unrest, death, divorce and discord had all impacted on his family and some of his Grandparents details were all that we knew. We both left the meeting determined to find out more, we would get in touch with family and sort it out in no time at all!
That was the beginning of my journey to know my family history. Today the journey continues and it has become a passion and lifelong research project for me now.
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