Your Family Stories

It seems, the older we get, the more many of us yearn to understand and connect with our past. Where did we come from? Why do we live in a particular part of the world? Why are we the way we are?

Whether it’s our height, the colour of our eyes and hair, our artistic talent, our sporting ability or our personality; our parents, grandparents, great grandparents and all those who came before us have contributed to making us who we are today. And, of course, our upbringing and life experiences also help shape us.

I love exploring my family history and getting to know my ancestors through photos, official records, documents, newspaper articles, family letters, heirlooms and anything else I can find.

I was born in Liverpool, England. Like many British families in the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s, my parents decided to become “Ten Pound Poms” and call Australia home so we travelled to Perth, Western Australia. My husband, via his maternal line, descends from very early Swan River Colony settlers – William and Hannah Leeder, who arrived in 1830 on the ship Rockingham. The inner Perth suburb of Leederville is named after them. [The Swan River Colony, founded in 1829, was the original British settlement in Western Australia.]

This blog aims to share some of my family stories. The further back we go, the more connections we find – more great grandparents, more more great aunts and uncles and more cousins. This means that many of my family stories could also be your family stories.

Get lost in the past and enjoy the stories that I will share.

Karen