Family

What a complicated thing a family is! I accidentally (almost) stumbled on WikiTree and went down the rabbit hole of genealogy. I’ve never been interested in family research, but I felt honour-bound to correct and complete details about my family on the site. Much of it I knew myself or could ask my mother. However, this was my father’s side of the family and none of his immediate family are still living so there’s no-one to ask. I’ll have to take a very deep breath if I decide to fill it all in, let alone begin on my mother’s side.

Family that’s right in my face is more to my taste. And there’s plenty of that to be going on with. Here’s my mum, the oldest of the clan at 92, holding the youngest aged one month (at the time of the photo). She is now a great-grandmother to this wee chap who was born on her birthday in January.

A baby brings out the best in everyone. Love overwhelms you and touches everyone in the room. On this family occasion we were celebrating two 21st birthdays and a 90th birthday. There were happy tears as births and childhoods were recalled. The 90 year-old and his late wife have always shown enormous love and nurturing to their grandchildren and now the grandchildren are doing the same with the new baby.

And this is me, a happy (fairy) godmother to my 21 year old niece and now a great-aunt! It sounds very grand. Perhaps I will work on that family tree.