Origins

Hi, my name is Andrea I live and work in London The most of my family live in Brazil I get on well with my sister when I see her But that's only once a year Do you spend much time with your family? I spend quite of bit time with my family, obviusly Less now since I left home and left university I go back every other weekend or... every, say, three weekends so yes, even quite a bit Probably not as much as I could Because the kids are busy and... I don't have any parents anymore and my husband's family live a fair way away so Probably is not much as we'd like to I try to, yeah. I try and spend as much as possible I've got two sisters. My oldest sister lives in London She lives in a houseboat actually, on the Thames which is very nice and My little sister lives in Tenerife with my parents I don’t, no. We’re geographically quite spread out. Yeah, I do. I go to school in Toronto and they live there I see them on weekends and whenever I can, really Do you think you have inherited any family characteristics? Often people say that I sound and look a lot like my dad which I don't see but everybody else does so, I guess I have done Yes, I do. A lot of people sometimes say I look like my aunt... or my mother but then, there a couple my aunt and my cousins that when people see us, they are like are you guys sisters? unfortunately I think I have, but probably not all bad my family seems we have fairly good personalities and it's usually fun being around them so I think I might have inherited some of that Oh absolutely I get stressed very easily I guess take things too seriously sometimes but I really value spending time with my family and that's probably a big thing that I've inherited physically yeah, definitely I think I'm quite slender and quite tall which is ike my mum In terms of personality probably not no, I don't think so, no. Yeah, definitely. I think from my mom I've got the kind of bubbliness and chattiness, she's very much like that and most of the time I'm like that, but then When I'm in a bad mood I get the dad side he’s kind of, my mum used to call him ‘a volcano' because he kind of just ‘erupts’. He’s really peaceful most of the time but then when you really make him angry he'll erupt and that's kind of how it is with me This is moment I think probably happens to all of us where there was something our mom or dad did between hated and then we find that we’re doing it. Do you know much about your family history? Yes, I know quite a lote some group of eccentrics really my family was... essentially they lived in Scotland and Argentina different bits of Latin America So I know, I know quite a lot about it we're like great writters and historians so, we do a lot of work with you know colleting that, we did a lot of work colleting that data about families history coming from Barbados and go into Liberia wich is where I'm from originally A little bit, one of my aunties did a family tree and... it appears that I'm a badass I think, a third generation Australian originally, we came from County Clare in Ireland so, that’s as much as I know. Yeah, it’s quite interesting actually because my father and my mother were both Catholic missionaries from Spain and they met in Zimbabwe while they while my father was a priest and my mother was a nun and they fell in love and they kind of left the church and decided to settle down in Zimbabwe and have kids. Yeah, I mean Canada is a country of immigrants so my family’s from Scotland and France I remember conversations with my grandparents them explaining but I wish I’d written more down because it’s amazing how much you forget You think, ‘I’m sure it’s so vivid I’m sure I’d remember more, but I wish I did. Does your family history play a part in your sense of who you are? Yes, very much so And part of that is that I was brought up in Latin America speaking Spanish to my friends and English to my parents so, in a sense, I was brought up between two cultures and that, at the end, is part of who I am. Definitely because family is a big part of me and we just try to keep those connections going I guess it’s a difficult balance in my head to see how much is me and how much is my family and knowing about my family history and knowing what I have inherited which I’m sure there’s lots and lots of habits that I must have inherited, but I feel a lot of it’s ‘me’ but it probably isn’t. no, not really at all I left home when I was about sixteen or seventeen so I think my sense of identity has been very much formed by my own belief systems and my own lifestyle rather than being particularly keyed into anything to do with my parents or my grandparents.