Family History Tales (Part 1)

What is it about family history that is so attractive, particularly at the moment?  Are our living families so disappointing that we are trying to dig up someone a little more appealing?  Are we devoid of role models in the present, so seek them in our distant past?  Well, I don't know about you, but nothing so deep is going on with me - I just want to match up some names to faces. Thirteen faces to be precise, all immortalised in a photograph taken around 1904, brought home 35 years ago. I knew it was my grandfather's family - him, his seven brothers, three sisters and their parents, but at that time I knew only four of the names - my grandfather's and his sisters'.  I decided I would find out all their names.  Then like most teenagers I found something more interesting to do and forgot about it for the next ten years.

Luckily I eventually remembered and over the next twenty five years I have built up their family tree, found all their names, tracked down their war graves, found who they married and traced their children and grandchildren all over the world.  I have moved onto the other branches of my family tree and beyond that into tracing other people's family trees.  I have found a passion - genealogy.

But I still haven't succeeded in my original quest.  I wanted to match names to faces, and although I know all the names of my great-uncles, I can't quite match up four - three died in WW1, the fourth survived, but I haven't traced his descendants yet.  Will I ever find them - I'll let you know.