In this month’s Psychologies magazine I was really interested to contribute to a feature about researching your ancestry and how it can help you to make sense of the world.

When I started to research my family tree earlier this year it was an odd experience. Not only was bringing the past to life incredibly fascinating and strangely addictive, it was also very emotional.

I started my journey into my family’s background with my maternal grandfather’s memoirs, which my mother finished collating and printed after his death in 2003.

While he was alive our relationship could be tempestuous. Perhaps we were both too headstrong, but often we’d clash. Picking up his story and reading it was difficult, but when I finally geared myself up to do it, in many ways it finally helped me come to terms with his death.

For years I’d held on to anger that perhaps he hadn’t loved me - although other members of the family insisted that he always had - and reading his memoirs was actually therapeutic.

It gave me a chance to finally get to grips with the complexities of my grandfather’s personality and understand that perhaps we were more similar than I thought and maybe that’s why we’d clashed.

While as a child he’d struck me as an incredibly confident outspoken personality reading his memoirs made me realize that deep down he was softer and on occasions lacked confidence, just like I do.

My next project was to explore my dad’s side of the family. Ever since the day my mum married an Aussie it has been a running gags within my wider family that the Wards are a bunch of ‘convicts’.

But researching my bloodlines has meant that at last we are vindicated after I managed to unearth the proof that my ancient Australia bound rellies were actually free-settlers.

Indeed my great, great grandparents, Daniel and Elizabeth Ward, arrived in Moreton Bay, Brisbane from Ireland in 1855 as assisted immigrants.

With their fare paid for by the Australian government and the promise of cheap land and opportunities galore they bravely embarked on an epic sea voyage to Oz aboard a vessel called the Cambodia.

Aged 26 and 25 respectively, they arrived in a very sparce and wild Australia on August 5th ready to start afresh despite the fact that neither of them could read or write. It made me appreciate that my literacy is something I’ve always taken for granted. I wonder if they’d ever envisaged their great, great granddaughter writing for a living? It made me feel incredibly lucky for all the opportunities I’ve had in life.

An email from my Dad’s sister revealed that Daniel and Elizabeth’s son, also called Daniel, had ten children (a tradition my grandfather Andrew, their youngest son later followed with 12 of his own!)

Sadly two of my grandfather’s siblings died - Thomas as a baby and Esther aged four. In those days the culprit is likely to have been measles, scarlet fever or diarrhoea. A reminder of how much we all take modern medicine for granted.

Moving on to my paternal grandmother’s side there was not a single criminal lurking either. Strangely enough in Australia finding a convict ancestor holds as much weight as finding a royal link here - but none-the-less I was secretly pleased that my lovely great grandparents Noah and Phyllis are resting in peace, their good name upheld.

Digging up their past brought back vivid memories of spending time with them. They lived on a farm out in the wilderness at Laidley, Queensland and lived into their 90s. Phyllis was a petite lady who regularly fought off venomous snakes with a big stick and would make us scream by holding up a six foot snake skin.

My great granddad was a kind man with sparkling blue eyes that never faded even when he grew frail and was bed bound in a care home. It reminded me of how much I miss them.

Returning to my English family I unearthed an astonishing revelation on my late maternal grandmother’s side. It turns out my great, great, great grandmother had the surname Giddings - which also happens to be the maiden name of my aunt who married my mum’s brother. Until now we had no clue that the two families were connected.

Like us my aunt’s Gidding relatives hailed from the village of Easterton in Wiltshire. But just as I geared up to mock my cousins for being inbred, I discovered it’s actually quite an accolade to be related to the Giddings.

It transpired the Giddings family fled to Easterton from London to escape the Great Plague in 1644. Sadly three Giddings brothers became ill and voluntarily took themselves off to die on a hill and spared the rest of the villagers from the disease.

They were buried on the hill with an elm tree at the head of each grave in a place still known as the Three Graves to this very day.

Hearing this story stirred up a real mix of emotions for me, pride that this was my heroic heritage but also a real sadness for those three boys – prepared to die together on the hill in a selfless act to save the lives of others. What a legacy to leave us all.

All in all I believe researching my family tree has made me much more aware of the fragility of life and how important it really is to live to your full potential every day.

But I’ve also learnt that it’s not just about my lifetime – I am just one part of a much bigger jigsaw with this incredible heritage behind me.

Now I want to make my mark too.

10 ways to investigate the past…

1. Work backwards in time. It’s easier to work methodically from a fact such as the date of birth or a marriage of a relative rather than a person you do not know much about.

2. Ask the family. Ask relatives what they remember about their families. Make a note of any nicknames or name changes, family stories, what your ancestors did for a living and what they looked like.  Also be conscious that there might be conflicting stories about an event.

3. Write things down. You never know what information will come in useful in your research so get into the habit of taking notes.

4. Check out the web. The internet can be a useful tool for contacting relatives and finding data. There are some superb websites that will help you start your family history. Visit www.ancestry.co.uk for more information on a free 14 - day trial to get started researching your family history.

5. Meet other family historians. The Society of Genealogists www.sog.org.uk is the largest genealogical society with a remarkable library and education programme of talks, workshops, seminars and tutorials on all aspects of ancestry.  Details of local societies can be found through the Federation of Family History Societies www.ffhs.org.uk.

6. What’s been done before? It is worth checking if anyone else is doing research into your family before you start. Social network sites such as www.familyrelatives.com and www.genesreunited.co.ukcould be a way of finding information. The Society of Genealogists library collects published and unpublished family histories and research notes.

7. Read up on the subject. Family history is a popular hobby but it might seem hard to get started.  There are many good books, websites and magazines devoted to discovering the subject. Your local library will have a wide selection and dedicated magazines have tips and detailed accounts of records and sources.

8. Ask questions. Who are you dealing with? Where did your ancestors live? When were they alive? What did your ancestors do in their lives and will that affect what information you can find?  Finding answers to these key questions will help you build up the family story.

9. Get some documentary evidence. Your family history will be drawn from myriad of sources throughout history. Birth, marriage and death records, censuses, wills, church records, occupational records, education, military service, tax records, criminal records, poor law, newspapers, trade directories, ecclesiastical licences, church court records and tombstones might all reveal valuable information.

10. Stay focussed. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all of the information available. Remember to have a clear idea of what you are looking for and why you started the search in the first place.