G is for Geography
It was tempting just to hop right into G is for genealogy, but I decided to challenge myself more and go with G is for Geography. This is because my genealogy research has forced me to learn more about the geography of my own home country. My knowledge of some of the midland counties was very fuzzy so I have learned a lot as I have tracked my relatives from the mines of Northumberland back through mining areas in other counties to their agricultural roots. I have started to put together information about this geographical journey on my Places page.
G is for Garden
No, I am not about to change a lifetime habit and develop green fingers. Strange really that I have so little interest in gardening as both my grandas and my Dad were keen gardeners. Garden in this instance is the name of my 5x great grandmother, Isobel Garden who married George Ruddiman. Isobel was born sometime in the mid 1700s in Aberdeenshire.
If you would like to know more about this alphabet challenge take a look at Family History through the Alphabet.
Digging up the ancients 
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Along the whole genealogy journey, not only do discover your ancestors, but you also learn social history along the way, and also geography. It’s amazing what you learn when you have a interest and connection to it isn’t it.
Picking up on a lot of stuff that I wish I had paid more attention to at school.
I can definitely relate to this. I now know a fair bit about lots of towns and villages of Northumberland and the Yorkshire Dales, even though I have never visited any of the places. Same goes for many villages in County Clare/Galway in Ireland; knowledge I’ve picked up along the way researching my Irish side.
Regarding Gould Genealogy’s comment about social history, I too enjoy the history side of genealogy. You learn so much from it and sometimes learning about a particular point in history can further help relate to your ancestors lives at the time. I had a great history teacher in my first year of secondary school, but I later changed teachers. The new teacher wasn’t nearly as good, and consequently lost interest in the subject. I chose Geography as one of my GCSE options, but in hindsight would have rather taken History.
I had to choose between geography or Latin and history or physics. At that stage I picked Latin and physics, so my geography and history knowledge is just built up through general reading and watching things on TV. Starting to realise now what I missed.
Geography seems to go hand in hand with genealogy, doesn’t it? I’m hopeless at it, always believing I could use a map if need be. Now I’m with you, having to learn about places and borders!
Thank heaven for google maps on the ipad, but I have also invested in some Ordnance Survey maps as many of the parish record entries show detail of which farm they lived on. Never really occurred to me before now how many places in England are further north than places in Scotland because of the angle the border runs at 🙂
Definitely “Geography”. Although it was a history project that got me interested in my family tree so many years ago, I didn’t pay much attention to History or Geography at school but now I am hooked and thoroughly enjoying learning heaps.
I had to do a family tree in history too when I was about 11. Unfortunately have lost it somewhere among my many moves. I didn’t find out much, but it would have been interesting to compare with it now.
I enjoyed taking a jaunt over to your “places” page. I’ve learned a lot of geography from my family research too.
Thanks Kristin. I still have lots of places to add, so lots more to learn 🙂