The beginnings of a family tree

The announcement of a new birth brings my thoughts back to the beginnings of my life as a family historian. The impetus came, not with a birth but with a death as, I am sure, these things often do and today, just 2 days from the first anniversary of my mother's death it seems a good time to take my mind back some 13 years when, little did I know, my life would become dominated by old photographs, birth, marriage and death certificates, website subscrptions, churchyards, archives, trips to new villages which would suddenly become "home" and constant questioning of anyone who might just remember something.
It is the frequent lament of this family historian that I didn't ask enough questions when I had the time and the people there who might have been able to answer. I found out a lot about my mother and her early life only in her last years when I was spending a lot of time with her, just sitting and trying to think of new topics of conversation. I never knew about the number of times she moved from one set of rooms to another in her early years. I didn't know about the hats her grandmother had worn. Details that now take on a new significance since I can no longer question her. Some time after her death I wrote to her aunt who had been so upset at the funeral and asked if she had any old photographs or details about the family but, sadly, she was not the family custodian and I must be content with what I have.
My grandmother left behind a box of family papers which included, amongst other things, the funeral account for her mother in law; my grandfather's school leaving certificate; torn out pages from the visitors' book of the theatrical lodgings she ran in the 1950s; some old photographs with relationships usefully added - "brother" "grandfather" - ah, but which one?
But that wasn't the beginning. That came with an unexpected and tragically early death and the realisation that we are now the grown ups.