Our immediate family is smallish and very close emotionally although quite far-spaced physically, with my sister and her husband and one nephew and his family in Cape Town, and our second daughter, Sara, and her husband Derek and son Tom in New South Wales and the rest of us spread out mostly in England but also Wales and Scotland.
The immediate family may be particularly interested in family stories, family history, possibly family research. This may not seem to be of great interest to others but actually there are some pretty intriguing stories to be shared. These are mostly Hall/Scotland-connected, but there is quite a juicy tale to be shared from my mother’s Hoste family. In fact, I am very much hoping to dig a bit deeper into my mother’s side with its Huguenot, Norfolk, Inland China Mission and naval connections.
As for John’ side, I find I am more interested than perhaps he is, and am trying to persuade him to arrange a gathering of some of his first and second cousins of which there seem to be many, as his mother was the youngest of ten! His father, an only son, died on the Lancastria right at the beginning of the war, so John never knew him and always was anxious not to upset his widowed mother by asking about him. The Sessions side (his mother married again) we know far more about and keep in close touch with although strictly speaking this is not John’s family actual family although it certainly feels so to him.
Once you go back several centuries the family expands enormously, so that may be an interesting aspect of research into both sides. Isn’t there a commonly held idea, that if we go back (how many generations?) we find we are all related…?
