Family History – Expect The Unexpected

The growth in online resources has enabled people to find information about their ancestors and to collaborate with others researchers. Finding and making contact with distant cousins is part of the fun,military, records,  and by sharing stories it is possible to piece together enough information to turn a name from the past into a person. I am not interested in going as far back as I can, for me it is much more interesting to understand as much as possible about the lives of the people in my tree, it is not enough just to know when and where they were born, who they married and when they died. It is possible to find a lot of information in military and employment records, church records, court and criminal records and in workhouse and poor relief records. It may be that you will uncover secrets or sorrows that the person would never have revealed during their lifetime. You are in a very privileged position, do not be too quick to judge because you can never know all the circumstances and hardships of their lives.

My own grandmother had a lot to say about moral values and was especially critical of women who were ‘no better than they ought to be’.  That was her term for women who had to get married or even worse had children outside marriage. I was surprised to find that it was not uncommon for the baby to be on the way by the time a couple married. In fact my great grandmother (my grandma’s mother) gave birth only a couple of months after her marriage. I suspect that my grandma who was the youngest daughter in a large family was completely unaware of this and perhaps her mother was very strict with her daughters to prevent them from making the same mistake. I was surprised rather than shocked by my discovery, if anything it made my great grandmother seem a little more human and it made me grateful for the more accepting attitudes of today.

My tree contains many shoemakers and agricultural labourers, so I was interested to find a policeman in the family and I was very excited when I was given a photo of him by a distant cousin. This was my husband’s great great grandfather. In the photo a self assured man with a formidable moustache proudly posed in his police uniform. I knew very little about him at that point but slowly I pieced together his family and then I made a terrible discovery, his youngest daughter had committed suicide at the age of 22. Eventually I found a report of the inquest and it was a very sad story. The young woman had been seeing a man of a similar age for about a year, she had even taken him home to meet her parents. She eventually found out that he was married and having been brought up in a church going family she was overcome with shame and she took a fatal dose of poison. Reading the report of the inquest brought tears to my eyes, it was clear that her father was a broken man almost incapable of giving evidence. His daughter was a very able musician, much like my own daughter, and despite the sadness of the evidence I had uncovered it was nice to know that a feeling for music had been passed down the generations. The report painted a picture of a very close family, with strict but loving parents and siblings with a deep affection for each other, this very sad event had allowed me a glimpse of their family life described in their own words.

If you decide to research your family history be prepared to find that the people in your tree become very important to you, and long gone triumphs and tragedies will matter very much to you. Perhaps we have a lot to learn from the past.

Family History: Much More Than Just Names and Dates

History Matters – Or Does It?