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Brits seek security in ancestral home

Tuesday, 29 July 2008 12:45 AM

British homeowners are seeking an escape from the frantic pace of city life, upping sticks and moving to the countryside, according to new research.

However, it is the location city slickers are selecting for their new homes which is proving of interest to researchers at FindMyPast.com.

A report by the website - Where Do You Think You're From? - finds over 1.4 million householders have deliberately moved home to live in the area their ancestors came from.

In addition, one in seven (15 per cent) Brits currently live in areas close to their family's roots purely by chance.

"We tend to think about social migration in terms of people moving away from their home towns in search of new opportunities," said Elaine Collins, commercial director at FindMyPast.

"However, it appears that we are now starting to see the beginnings of a move in the opposite direction with many people moving in search of their ancestral roots, possibly as a reaction to having families spread across the country and feeling like we have lost touch with our family's heritage."

Furthermore, the research finds one in ten Brits nationwide would like to move back to the area of their family's origination in the future.

This number rises to 16 per cent of London's population, possibly because many Londoners moved to the capital to follow careers and harbour plans to move back to the place of their own childhood or closer to other family members.

However, locating the site of ancestral homes could prove to be a problem for some Brits.

Only half know where their grandparents spent their childhoods (48 per cent on the paternal side and approx 54 per cent on the maternal side), according to FindMyPast, and a huge one in ten don't know where at least one of their parents were born.

"Discovering more about your familial roots can be hugely valuable and rewarding," concluded Ms Collins.

Chris O'Toole

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