Family History, Why Don't We Ask the Questions When We Can?

I remember visiting the industrial museum in Bradford, West Yorkshire when I was about 10 or 11. It was a school trip. I remember going into the factory and seeing the looms and thinking…. What has this got to do with me? Bradford was one of the big players in the industrial revolution and I could not understand what significance that was to people of my generation. I was young… what more can I say?
Years later, whilst conducting my own family history research, I discovered that the largest percentage of my Bradford ancestors worked in similar mills to the one we had been shown. In the 1901 census, three of my great grandmother’s sisters worked as worsted spinners. Had I known then what I know now I would say…show me what they did, what were conditions like, the hours, the wages. Did my great gran ever work in the mills, before she was a cook in Busby’s department store? I don’t know because I didn’t ask.

Shortly before my father died he had a conversation with one of my siblings along the lines of: “oh you know I have always had a fascination with steam engines?” Several phone calls later it was established that not one of us knew. I do know that from about the age of 5, my dad was put on the steam train in Torquay, Devon by his parents (the train guard was asked to keep an eye on him) and he was greeted by his grandparents in Bradford, Was this where his fascination for steam locomotives stems from? I will never know.
My own children (hopefully know what interests I have) have shown only vague interest in their family histories. That is not something I mind because I think the young are too busy living life to really have any concept of ancestry. I hope that one day they will pause and ask “What are my roots?” “Where did I come from?” I hope that I am still around to answer the very same questions that I should have asked but left it too late to do so, but if not then I know that they will have access to all the research I have done on my Devon agricultural labouring roots, my chair maker 3x great grandfather in Worksop, my coalminer 2x great grandfather in Nottinghamshire and Durham and all the other ordinary but fascinating members of our family tree.