Not really a Christmas present, my brother last week e-mailed me all the fruits of his family tree researches, for both sides of the family, and I've had fun drawing out family trees by hand.
We had a good start with a big old family bible which had Wright family data written on blank pages by my dad's dad and his dad, going back to 1830, and the Wrights back to then were all born in Scotland (Dumfries area). My brother, subscribing to an ancestry site with parish records, marriage certs. and gravestone info, soon confirmed our suspicions, that the earlier Wrights (pre-1830) were English
Well, of course, with a name like Wright that should not come as a shock. So he has traced the direct ancestor Wrights (in the Carlisle area) back to 1750. Doing google searches picks out the Wright surname in many villages in that area in the 19thC (e.g. POLICE records!) but none of them match the dates of our direct ancestors, though in all likelihood some are distantly related
Our old family were simple village folk, some with their own business, some working on big country estates (for the family of Thomas Carlyle is one example). One sad thing is the high rate of infant mortality which I suppose was normal in those days, even one great-great-uncle giving up after all four children died under age of three.
But good to see so many of the menfolk lived to over 80, and with that we are fortunate to have many photos of white-bearded men taken 1904-1912
Much bigger families on my mum's side to tackle.
John W
