After Mum (Imelda Cecilia IRELAND) moved house in September 1991 we had the task of going through her Mum’s (Winifred FARRELL) suitcase of old papers. Our job was to see if the pile of paper conatined any important documents. Amongst the may bills and letters we found a few old battered certificates. Diane (VAN ETTEN) decided to draw up a family tree to see how all the people fitted together. In half an hour she had gone back five generations to Mum’s great grandmother Bridgett ANDERSON. It all seemed so easy so we put the stuff away to follow up at some later date.
We asked Mum if she still had any papers from Dad’s (Harry MCDONALD) side of the family. Unfortnuately for us Aunty Margaret (BLAIR) and Mum had cleaned out Gran’s (Florence Kate MCDONALD) papers when she had visited us in New Zealand earlier in the year after Dad has died. So we decided to renew our interest when we went to Liverpool for Ann’s (MCDONALD) wedding to Dave (HUGHES) in September 1992. Mum told the family that we were interested in researching the family’s history and asked them to dig up what they already had. We obtained a family tree computer database to record the basic details of each person that we found. This at last gave us an easy way to assess the information we had collected and simplify the linking process, something that is hard to do on paper.
Bill McDonald
