Welcome Joshua Fernley

Welcoming a new member to the family is a timely reminder that I have work to do.

On 11^th May we welcomed Joshua, my grandson to the family.  To give him his full name, he is Joshua George Walter Fernley: the names George and Walter are in honour of his great grandfathers. 

Joshua brings a new chapter to the story of our family and the communities they lived in. His story will be about living in the twenty-first (and more than likely the twenty-second) centuries. Adding another generation to the family tree feels like it pushes our ancestors further back in time: our eighteenth and nineteenth century ancestors now seem much more remote.

This is a timely reminder to carry on with the work of researching our ancestors and telling their story on this blog. It’s been a long while since I published anything here, but now feels like the perfect time to start again. 

Actually, the family research isn’t going too badly. I’ve now got the basic information for our direct ancestors going back to the early nineteenth century. Counting my parents, that’s four generations, and I plan to go back two more. To many genealogists it would seem like I’ve barely scratched the surface, and could go back much further in time. But I want to do more than just find out who my ancestors were: I want to know what their lives were like and how they lived. To do this I’m sacrificing numbers and looking back at fewer people in more detail. I’ll be happy if I reach back to 1750 or so. 

Welcome Joshua, and may you have a long and happy life. When you’re old enough I’ll have some amazing stories to tell about your Fernley family and their adventures.