My Story

Many years ago, I was asked to housesit for 6 weeks, it was winter and I had tidied cupboards, sorted drawers, dusted every surface and needed something to exercise those little grey cells. So, I sat down in front of the computer and started searching Google for ideas.

Almost straight away I came across an advertisement for one of the main family history research sites, offering a free trial. I was intrigued and, knowing little to nothing about my paternal grandmother, I started entering names, dates and places to see what I might discover. Some of the results were surprising and contrary to what I had been told and this wetted my appetite to look further. In no time at all I was hooked.

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The results generated piles of notes and sprawling family trees. I made mistaken connections, followed erroneous and false leads, but the unravelling of these taught me vital lessons and the all-important principle that all data needs to be confirmed and validated by more than one source, before accepting it as possibly accurate.

My enthusiasm was insatiable, my curiosity was endless and in no time at all I was being asked by other people for my help. I introduced people to basic search techniques, unscramble confused results, broke through dead-ends and even found unknown relatives.

Then ancestry DNA technology arrived and with it a whole new world of possibilities for family history research. Even with all the potential many people found the results rather overwhelming and I now found myself being asked to help make sense of and give meaning to their DNA match results.

Finding out about your ancestors is fascinating and can introduce you to new parts of your history. Your family DNA results are your living relatives with whom you have shared origins and history and it would be my pleasure to assist you in understanding these new connections.

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~ Charlotte Howse