WHAT ARE THE CHANCES?
I came to genealogy by what was to prove a double-edged twist of fate.
In 2010, my late father was diagnosed with a terminal condition and given between two and three years to live. He died on 1 January 2013. Shortly after his fateful diagnosis, he called me and asked whether there was anything I could do to help him unearth the identity of his biological parents. He had been adopted at an early age, but had never before shown any interest in the circumstances of his birth. And so I embarked on a journey that led me first to discover the identity of my ‘real’ grandmother and thereafter the joy of family history. Frustratingly, after eleven years of in-depth research, my real grandfather is still proving elusive; my father’s adoption papers cite his name starkly as John Palmer, ‘address unknown’.
Today, as a professional genealogist, running a research and education business from my home on the coast of Suffolk, I spend most of my waking hours on a diverse range of research projects. More recently, however, I first attempt to encourage prospective clients to think about doing the work themselves, because of the many benefits that family history can bring. I’ll address these in more depth later.
THE UNREPEATABLE CHAIN OF EVENTS
Given the nature of my own introduction to genealogy, I have often reflected on the role that chance plays in our lives. Some years ago, I read a fascinating article, in which the author attempted to calculate the probability of being born
