Researching Modern Ancestors - Unlocking the Life of an English Rose

Please recognize that our research skills aren’t just for researching the long-ago deceased; they can be used for 20th-century research into a loved one. This research project (revisited every few years) is my most personal project -- it is about my “mum” (or “mom” for U.S. readers) – Margaret Joyce (Fountain) Acey, born 15 October 1937, died 21 January 1990.

Think you know your mom? By the time one is an adult, we often assume that we know all there is to know about, say, a mother, father, or grandparents. How wrong we might be. As genealogists, we sometimes get so focused on researching the long-ago deceased that we skip over the individuals we
lived with or frequently visited. Don’t wait!

I’ll share the research I did and some tips & tricks that researchers might employ if they were to pursue similar research into a more recently diseased family member.

My mother died relatively young – leaving little memorabilia, having been unwilling to speak of her youth, and siring children who didn’t think to ask. My research yielded some fun surprises, much frustration, so many questions, and is ongoing.

Check out the class preview here