The quest for family members of the past is an interesting venture. We live our day to day lives not considering many others outside of our nuclear family unit until one day an event explodes onto the scene, like a parent or grandparent death, to remind us that we too are not going to live forever.

This awakening for me occurred when one day I suddenly realised my grandmother was getting older, before my every eyes, and I did not know even where she had come from. She could not have always been old. My grandmother's husband had died as an old man a whole 3 years before I was born. Grandmother was born 1898, at a time when personal information was not given to anyone, especially grandchildren. Personal information which could be revealing secrets, and other information which she considered to be of no significance to anyone today, because all these details were about people who were long long dead.