GENEALOGY WITHOUT BORDERS

How many of us, like myself, have family members residing in another part of the world, with whom we remain in touch via Facebook and perhaps even through the occasional phone call or Zoom based conversation? Every day I see pictures and posts from my brother’s family in Dubai, and from my uncle and cousins in Melbourne and Brisbane, with their daily lives something I engage with on a virtual basis, as they do with mine. They may be based overseas, but they are still family, and we catch up in the flesh every once in a while, already knowing a great deal of what we have all been up to!

Of course, emigration in the past was a very different story. On sailing to a foreign shore, our ancestors and relatives might not have been heard of again for years, if ever at all. Whilst some may have returned home for the occasional visit, the majority did not, as they and their descendants became the Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, and other nationalities who today form part of the respective cultural diasporas which originated from our shores.

How those settlements were created, and how they have progressed throughout history, depends very much on the origins of those who emigrated. When the Puritan English settlers of the arrived in Plymouth in 1620, they celebrated their first successful harvest with a feast and celebration that now forms a main American holiday every year, Thanksgiving. By contrast, it could be said that the convicts and emigrants who formed the first settlers