A magnetic pull from the ties that bind us

Jul 30 2008 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

THERE’S an invisible piece of elastic that’s attached to all of us and no matter how far we stray it will pull us back to our origins.

Not with the quick snap of a bungee chord and there you are in the middle of Yorkshire with a sore neck and a sudden craving for fruit cake with cheese, but a more gentle process like a mother gradually becoming aware of the toddler tugging on the hem of her skirt.

Decades may have passed, whole generations growing up in Tunbridge Wells, until someone eventually succumbs to the urge to move to Liverpool.

If it’s anything to do with the invisible elastic, then the decision to up-sticks will have been caused by a subconscious desire to return to the place of their ancestors.

Signs of Scouse blood may have been showing up in the family for sometime – occasional incidences of out-of-character wittiness in Cousin Neil; that time in the 60s that everyone’s too polite to mention, when Uncle Norman quit his accountancy degree to join a band; Bryony’s habit of being friendly to shop assistants.

These hints have been ignored for some time until Neil, who’s known for being a bit rebellious, moves up North, and Norm’s adventures in the local records office uncovers Scouse ancestry.

Sound unlikely? Well not according to a report out this week, which reveals that 15% of Britons currently live in areas close to their family’s roots but many of them do not know it.

Others however, some 3% of British adults, have made a conscious decision to return to the area their ancestors originated from and a further one in 10 would like to – this figure increases to 16% among Londoners.

Opinium Research, which carried out the online poll of 2,234 people for the family history website findmypast.com, puts this down to feeling that we have lost touch with our family’s heritage.

These days, when often it comes as a surprise to find yourself working back in your home city after you’ve been away to university, that idea makes sense, but only in cases when you’re aware of the place your ancestors were from.

And how far do you take it? I recently had my DNA tested for a feature in this newspaper and the results revealed an ancestor living in the Perpignan region of France during the Ice Age.

Is this why I chose to study a French degree?

Does it explain my sister’s incredible aptitude for the language?

Are both those things the case because we feel in some way connected to the land of our ancestors, even though at the time I selected a university course I had no idea of the link.

Will one of us eventually move to France, or will we end up in Belgium because, going back on our dad’s side, we are descended from Huguenots?

Taking the theory to extremes, won’t our descendants all end up converging on Africa, where the human race is believed to have originated?

I feel no need to relocate to South Wales, Ireland, France or Belgium, even though I know I had ancestors who lived in all those places, but perhaps that’s because so much of my family’s history is based right here.

There’s the place on Woolton High Street where my Great Aunt Letticia, chauffeur to a cardinal, learned to drive, and the pub nearby where my grandmother used to change into her hockey kit as a girl.

“Go for the legs,” she advised my dad many years later as he practised dribbling in the garden.

There is the row of houses that my ancestors, Welsh builders, helped construct, and the church hall where my uncle once played with a man who was to become more famous than 1950s Woolton could ever imagine.

For some of us, the invisible elastic may not be seen but it can be heard – in the sepia-tinted stories of times long past that help us understand who we are and where we have come from.

lauradavis@dailypost.co.uk