My name is Charleigh and I have been actively researching my family tree since 2017. I first became interested in our family history as a child when aunts and older cousins told me we were descended from Anne Boleyn! Yes, I know, I see your eyebrows raise, too. Even as a child, I doubted this story as we were taught very early Elizabeth I had no children!
However, this story captivated me as I became a teenager and the late Muriel Kimmons (a wonderful history teacher) told me every convincing lie needs a kernel of truth. So, then, what was the kernel of truth in this family lie?
Then, as I got older (I think I was around 22), a family member sent me a letter they had received in the 1980’s about my 2nd great grandfather, and, well, me being me, I read the letter no less than 26 times in the first hour I had it trying to memorise the entire thing. In it, there were some exceptionally interesting claims and that was it. I jumped headfirst into researching everything.
I started out wanting to know everything about my grandmothers and great-grandmothers. My maternal grandmother, Trudie, died around 3 months before I was born, and I knew her family history was riddled with intrigue and excitement, and I was armed with a little bit of knowledge of my paternal grandmother, Christine, who I was exceptionally close to until her passing in November 2017.
From there, the flood gates opened and I have spent the last few years working backwards to validate everything I have been told. Unfortunately, the majority of what was given to us in the letter had very few kernels of truth, but it has helped me on my research regardless.
Recently, my mother and I have started afresh, with a brand new tree, and this is what has prompted me to create this blog in order to save information and centralise our research.
History Herstory 