#52Ancestors Week 48 “Gratitude’

Welcome to Week 48 of my Genealogy challenge, from the wonderful Amy Johnson Crow, of writing something about your Ancestors for a whole year, #52Ancestors in 52 weeks. This week’s prompt is ‘Gratitude’.

I have always had a passion for History and probably like a lot of people in their mid 20’s, I hadn’t really heard of ‘Family History’. In the pre-internet days, it never had nowhere near as much exposure as it has today, it was deemed a hobby for retired people only.

That all changed when I met Dave Smith at work. Dave was my Foreman when I first started working at an Engineering Company building pumps. He taught me everything I needed to know about pumps and his attention to detail has always stuck with me. Despite our obvious age difference, we got on really well and became good friends as well as work colleagues.

Over the months and years, I got to know more about Dave’s family and life over our dinner breaks and Dave would always tell me about his Family Tree. He would bring envelopes literally bulging with papers and documents and his enthusiasm was literally, infectious, and the seeds were sown.

Dave was kind enough to lend me books and help me understand how to research, how to build a tree, this was way before the days of the internet. This was about Libraries, Record Offices, joining your local Family History Society (Essex) and searching surname lists and even writing letters NOT emails!

I was hooked.

So here we are, all these years later and I am still working on my Family Tree………….thanks Dave!

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