For someone who is very interested in the subject, I was very pleased to meet a distant cousin a few months ago. (First of all a little background) I had been "doing" if that is the correct terminology, my fathers side of the family, when whilst working on it, we had an extremly bad 'bout' of power serge, and yes, I lost everything, and you've guessed it, I had not done a backup, (a lesson there I think). So after a few weeks, my mother was sat at the side of me working on the computer, when she said "Well, why don't you do my side of the family" why not indeed. It took 2 minutes (I'm not exagerating) I put her family name in and the word Leicester, and litertally within those two minutes mother had identified a picture on a web site, and started saying "well thats your Grandmother, Thats my cousin" and so on.

So we were well on our way, the site belongs to my mothers cousin, and a 'phone call later, and it was like old times. But, and its a very big BUT, he was not the end of the saga, he had only been doing the research for a couple of years. However, one of their cousins had been "doing it" since 1964!, but ofcourse in those days, she had been writing it all down in long hand. But, now, with technology, she has been able to convert it all to a web site. (Has anyone come across a web site called www.tribalpages.com)? I dare not ask her how many woman hours it has taken her! But she has now managed to amass 4632 names within our family tree, now thats alot!!! And what a fantastic resource for all of us, we've discovered some skeletons, and some people of note.

So back to my youngest, after I had given him his answer I said did he want to know who my Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great,Great, Great, Great, Great, Great,Great, Great, Great, Great, Great,Great, Great, Great, Great, Grandmother was, well his responce was not as excited as I thought it would be (You know what teenagers are like, give them anymore than they want, and they turn off) well I managed to keep his attention for a little longer, "Well, go on then Dad, who was she?" "Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine" I responded. "Wow" came a little shreek from the corner of the room, "Did you say a queen", "Yes, and there is a couple of Kings churcked in there for good measure"

He could not contain himself, and had rushed out of the room, but, and there is that BUT again, he did not wait to listen to that little bite of information you just really must listen to, it's almost like that section of writing at the bottom of a contract, all in small print, and you just look at it and say "Yip, I'll read that later"

The info, he did not listen to, the info that he really should have listened to before telling his mates at school, was that back in the 1100's the population of this country, was so obviously so much smaller than today that it is probally a safe bet to say that there are so many people today, who could say that they are related to Queen Eleanor, or can trace their own family trees back to the likes of; King John, King Henry, Edward 1, Edward 11, Edward 111, infact all the Plantagenet House Kings and Queens.