Nicola here. Today I’m wondering what happened to all the plans I had at the start of lockdown in March. Back then time spent quietly at home felt like an opportunity to catch up with a load of things I’d wanted to do for a while, whether it was clear out the wardrobe or start a new hobby. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see this was probably optimistic; we’ve all had a lot of shocking, frightening and unexpected stuff to deal with in our different ways, my concentration is non-existent and I haven’t achieved anything close to what I thought I would. On the other hand, and on a more optimistic note, the kindness and strength of friends, family and strangers through difficult times has been truly amazing.
One of my interests before the pandemic kicked in was genealogy. I only came to family tree research a few years ago. A number of relatives had been busy working on different parts of the family history for years and I felt they had it covered and I had lots of other things to research! But then, I don’t know why or how, I started to become interested in genealogy myself and once I’d started it became totally compulsive. I even had an Ancestry DNA test done - which didn’t reveal anything very exciting at all!
Like a lot of people at the start of their genealogy journey I was hoping for something different or unusual in the family tree. It 
didn’t have to be a connection to royalty or, at the other end of the scale, a pirate or highwayman, but something interesting would be very welcome. There was a persistent story in the family that at the start of the 19th century, one of my grandmother’s ancestors, who was an illiterate Yorkshire coal miner, was offered the opportunity to claim a title but that he refused, saying: “No fancy London lawyer is going to make a fool out of me.” I haven’t been able to find any evidence for this story at all but it really interests me where family stories come from. Usually there is a grain of truth in them even if they get very distorted over the centuries.
Most of the family stories came from my father’s side of the family because he was a remarkable raconteur. He claimed that we were descended from 13th century Gascon knights, which is pretty precise although as it turns out, entirely fictitious. What he probably didn’t know when he made this up was that our only connection to the aristocracy actually was on his side of the family, via a link to the Harley family of Brampton Bryan in Shropshire. I’m not going to put in a claim for the family castle. It looks as though it needs a lot of work! However, the estate does look very nice. There are some pictures here. it’s certainly an honour to be connected however distantly to Brilliana, Lady Harley, who defended Brampton Bryan Castle against a 3 month siege by the Royalists during the English Civil War. I think I may write about her in the future. Certainly there are enough stories I've discovered in the family tree to inspire a number of future books!
Back on my mother’s side of the family tree there may not have been any nobility but there were some interesting things going on. 
One of her distant cousins was the cabinet maker Thomas Chippendale who became famous for his Georgian furniture and interior design work. I discovered that this family line was descended from the man who has become my favourite ancestor, Osgod Clapa. Osgod (from the Old Danish name Asgot) was a Viking who came to England during the reign of King Canute. It was apparently at the marriage of Osgod’s daughter Gytha in 1042 that King Harthacanute died from drinking to excess! Osgod went on to become Master of the Horse to Edward the Confessor. We actually have a description of Osgod from a pilgrimage he made to the shrine of St Edmund when a monk described him as: “proudly bearing armlets on both arms, his gilt-inlaid axe slung from his shoulder in the Danish fashion.” I must admit to being very happy to have found a link to a bona fide Viking!
But for all the exciting discoveries there can be to make in a family tree, I found that when lockdown came, I put aside the genealogy research and didn’t feel like digging into the past any more. Instead I felt a very strong urge to connect with the family I had in the present, and also those with whom I had lost touch. Perhaps it was that the pandemic made me focus on the importance of strong bonds to the people who matter. It’s not always possible to re-connect but where it is, it can bring joy.
In the last week or so I’ve gone back to the family tree. If I find more exciting discoveries that 
will be great but I’ve also come to realise that it’s the everyday stuff that is truly important. Those ancestors who worked the land for centuries had determination and endurance, and when they moved to the cities to find jobs during the industrial revolution, they were striking out to make a new life for themselves and their families. The women were as tenacious as the men, working, raising families, enabling us to have the lives we have today. Many of our ancestors had to face considerable hardship and given the times we’re living through now, that can be very inspiring. For a lot of people, the appeal of genealogy comes from the fact that it is history on a personal scale. It helps us to understand where we come from but in tough times, I think it can also give us strength to see ourselves as part of something bigger and to keep forging ahead.
Are you interested in genealogy? Have you investigated your family tree or family stories, and if so, what did you find?
