Who Do You Think You Are?

Last week I went to the Who Do You Think You Are? exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. Having never been to this kind of event before I wasn't sure what to expect, other than a lot of walking and a crowd of people. I wasn't disappointed.

Researching our family history has become a family affair. Turns out learning where you come from is a contagious pastime. Mum's cousin started on it a couple of years ago when she started compiling names and creating our family tree on www.ancestry.co.uk. Then her daughter joined in and their family holidays started including visits to view parish records. Another cousin sparked our curiosity by asking who these people really were. Where did they live? What did they do? Suddenly we were all scouring the genealogy websites searching for answers. The more information we found, the more it inspired us to dig deeper. Which is how I ended up at what is pitched as 'the worlds largest family history show'. It's big. My feet can attest to that.

As well as the big ancestry websites and magazines, there were stands representing different regions, various workshops to attend and even experts on hand to answer questions where I'd got stuck with my research. Sadly there simply wasn't time to do everything that I would have liked, but three hours later I had a bag of leaflets, a couple of books to help me with my research and a notebook full of scribbled web addresses and people to contact.

All of this research has a dual purpose, as it's inspired a new novel. It seems writing has a way of creeping into every aspect of my life. Even the past.