My family won't be there

[Just Martin]

My wife had been a keen compiler of her family history for a few years when I accompanied her to a family history fair. Someone from West Berks FHS waved to me,
"Give me your family name," she said
"You won't find it," I replied. "My family have made no mark on history. Try Dowse, they were in Wantage"
"What, these people?" She gestured at her screen.
I looked, it was the 1881 census (of course) and there was Henry Nelson and his family. It looked like magic to me.
I found the website when I got home and joined Ancestry. I can be quite single minded and focused when something catches my interest and soon I was obsessed. Genes Reunited, FindMyPast, google searches and soon I had a picture of a family that was a little different to my mother's telling and I had discovered the 'joys' of researching my Irish father's tree = "You should have asked Kate," he would say, "she was the family historian." this, long after Kate had died.
Since then:

• I have helped reunite two half sisters who didn't know each other existed (the story in one of the LC newsletters).
• I have discovered that my grandfather was a bigamist (and possibly not related to my mother at all)
• Thanks to DNA, I have more Irish cousins than I ever thought possible
• Ran past my great grandfather's house in Chapelizod as part of the Dublin Marathon
• 'Finished' a single name and place study, Dowses in Wantage, a fascinating exercise.

At the moment, I'm stuck - I can go broader, but deeper into the past is a challenge. It looks like one of my ancestors on my father's side was born at sea and my grandmother on my mother's side might have been a bit of a party girl.

Still, it's all good