One of out IT volunteers Jeanette has written a fascinating piece about tracing her family history.
It all began when my father died in July 2000. We’d not been in touch for some years. In amongst the stuff in his house in Liverpool were some notes, lists made painstakingly before records went online, some in books, some on loose-leaf, some on those sheets you get to record family history – and a small plastic bag containing a set of postcards from the early 1900s and a few black and white photographs. He had been looking into the family history.
My brother (Russ) and I were mildly interested – we didn’t know a great deal about his side of the family. Russ took the stuff in a carrier bag with all good intentions and stored it safely in his loft.
When I retired in 2011 I was searching around for things to fill my time. Shortly after, I received a letter from a charity writing on behalf of an adopted person who was convinced that my father was also his father. As it happened he wasn’t, and that fact was swiftly established, but it made me think that I should try to learn a bit more about this side of the family. Off I trotted to the Family History session at Brighouse Library to make a start.
It cost me just £1 per visit and with help I began searching the census records. Dad’s notes were still in the loft down in Surrey; Russ had looked through them and said that he couldn’t make much sense of them so I was basically starting from scratch. I didn’t even know much about my paternal Grandfather who died a few years before I was born, apart from some fairly unflattering comments that Grandma had made shortly before she died.
I was especially intrigued by the postcards and photographs in the plastic bag. Who were these people? Most of the cards were addressed to the house where my grandmother had lived and where we spent our summer holidays in the 50s and 60s.
By the time I retrieved the cards and photos I had made quite a bit of headway on Ancestry. To date I haven’t gone very far back but I have been quite surprised at the detail that I have managed to uncover in one way or another. I am in the process of writing about the family who moved into no 5 Church Street in the early 1900s. Some of their story is reflected in the postcards. As I mentioned, there were also some photos – of course, none of these had names or dates on the back! Having known my Grandmother well, I could recognise her on her wedding photograph which allowed me to identify my Grandfather. In another photo he is standing by a seated older lady looking very matriarchal –clearly my Great Grandmother. But there was another photo. It was small and beginning to fade. It was of a man standing in a garden with a woman seated and two boys, one about 11 or 12 (standing) and one about 3 or 4 on the woman’s knee. The man was ramrod straight, supported by a stick and wearing a Boys’ Brigade uniform. The woman’s dress looked to be in the fashion of the early 1930s. The man looked very much like my father to me and I was sure that they must be related. I was to return to that photograph many times over the next few years. Someone told me that I would probably never know who it was. I do now!
One day last summer, when I hadn’t been working on the family stuff for a while, I was at a loose end. It was a Tuesday as I recall, and the family history session was on at the library. I wandered along. I was really after some advice about recording it all; even though I had typed up fact sheets for each family member it was all becoming quite unwieldy. The chap I spoke to talked generally about the different approaches to growing a family tree – some people want to go back as far as possible, keeping the tree pruned and growing it tall. Others want to expand it ‘sideways’, finding living relatives. Others, like me, are not worried about going far back in time, but want to fill the branches with as much information about the people in the family as they can, giving a glimpse into the lives of those who came before. He also mentioned that, during his research he had uncovered a relative on the south coast who was able to help him with his tree.
Reinvigorated by this conversation I took the opportunity to log into Ancestry and typed in the name of my great uncle George. As I browsed through the results there was a name I hadn’t come across before on the birth register – Eric Victor Lawton, George’s son. I double-checked it – it had to be right. I couldn’t understand how I’d missed it before; up to this point I had believed that George only had one son. I printed out the summary sheet and sent myself the email link provided on the Ancestry website.
It was only as I was walking home on that sunny afternoon in Brighouse when the penny dropped – the man in the garden had 2 boys with him. Could the man be Great Uncle George, the man who had sent many of the postcards from all over the world when serving in the Somerset Light Infantry? I looked over my notes when I got home – it all fitted.
Over the next few days I used free BMD and Google and found a descendant with a contact phone number – Eric’s son who lived in Weymouth. On a rainy Saturday afternoon I phoned. Second cousin Laurence was more than happy to receive the call. “It’s so strange that you should phone now” he said. “My wife has just taken out a 3 month subscription to Ancestry and said to me that, when she has finished, I could have another go at my family history!” We exchanged information about the 2 branches of the family.
I went down to meet him and his family last summer. We took a trip over to Portland and saw the house where my Great Grandmother had lived. I went to Dorchester, found number 5, Church Street and visited the archives to view some ledgers from the family Bill Posting business that was in operation in the early 1900s. Laurence and I keep in touch – Christmas cards, the odd email, here and there if we find something new. He is still working and very busy but never too busy to reply. It’s great to have someone in the family with a shared interest. I’m still trying to find the best way to write it all up!
