Who do YOU think you are?

Watching afternoon TV yesterday, Richard ...whatsisname... you know, the Richard and Judy feller...anyway, he was tracing his ancestors, or rather, a load of experts were tracing them for him, and he was just there as old ladies' eye candy I presume.

Now I didn't see all of the programme, but I saw the bit about his great, great, great, great grandfather who had fought with the New England militia in a war against the leader of the Pokanoket Indians - a man who was called King Philip by the colonists. This was in December of 1675.

The researchers had dug deep and found out a heap of facts about his ancestors, and I couldn't help but feel envious that so much information had been uncovered. There seemed to so much information about his g,g,g,g grandparents.

There was even a document that outlined the events of one particularly horrific battle in which it's highly likely that Richard's ancestor would have taken part, and I thought how wonderful to read about something that your ancestor actually did.

But then I listened to what the researcher was actually saying.

Seems that about a thousand members of the Narragansett tribe (men, women and children) were in a huge fort in the middle of a swamp. They must have felt pretty safe given that you'd have to know the paths extremely well in order to successfully reach the fort. However, the swamp froze, and a guide helped troops to get close. The colonial militia were able to take the people holed up inside by surprise and there followed a fierce and bloody battle.

Ah...just remembered the guy's name - it was Richard Madeley.

The document that was read out to Richard Madeley was supposedly a first hand account written by someone who was actually there. Distressingly, it described how wigwams were burned with people inside, whether dead or alive. (Wikipedia also says that there were large numbers of casualties, including many hundred women and children.)

I know that anyone taking part would have been following orders, but I can't help wondering how a common soldier would have felt during a battle like that.

Would they have been horrified at what they had been told to do? Or would they have felt justified in carrying out such a horrific attack?

My own research has revealed my own grandfather's military history, and now I'm wondering what terrible things he saw and did.

I think that maybe, sometimes, it's best not to know.

I think the blog is working ...

Before I started this blog I had lost the will to write. I'd try...but then I'd ask myself, Why bother? Who would want to read anything from me anyway? This went on for quite a long time. Having been a fairly confident writer, I suddenly seemed to lose it.

I waited...I took my time...I was gentle with myself...nothing happened. Now there's a surprise!

What did I expect? That, with no effort on my part, I'd simply wake up one day and have a Eureka moment? That a voice would whisper an amazing plot in my ear and I'd knock out that best seller in record time?
...maybe...?

Well anyway, that didn't happen. Surprise surprise.

I wasn't being pro-active at all, my imagination had gone walkabout, and I was starting to feel more and more frustrated with myself for not even trying to write.
I really needed to write something, anything, for my own satisfaction, just to show myself that I could still do it.
So, as you know, I started to write this little blog - just for me - I decided to let myself ramble on about anything that interested me at the time. As it happens I was growing more and more interested in tracing my family history. I've been recording my thoughts to help me to stay organised, and I've allowed myself to speculate on how my ancestors lived, worked, fought, loved, died...I let myself go with the flow. It didn't matter that I'd jumped from person to person, or that I'd drifted through time with no sense of order. The aim was to simply write anything.

And it's starting to work for me.

The other night I had an amazingly clear nightmare, so scary that I woke myself up reciting the Lord's Prayer over and over. So clear that I had to write it down. So weird ... that I now have the beginning of a plot for a story based on my family research.
Eureka!
Then today, wandering round an antiques fair, I spotted an unusual object that could have been used by one of my ancestors, and immediately a possible storyline popped into my head.
Double Eureka!

I'm still researching. I'm still eagerly sending off for birth, marriage and death certificates, and I'm still trawling through military records and devouring every fact that I can glean about these people whose genes I share.

But, alongside that, I'm starting to write again.
Thank goodness for that!

Spanish Flu

I've been looking up any info I can find on events around the end of World War 1 and realised that I'd totally forgotten the influenza pandemic of 1918.
How could I have forgotten that?
Hundreds of millions of people affected by this deadly virus, more people killed by it than during the whole of WW1. Incredible!
What made it so deadly? How did it spread so far, so rapidly? Where did it originate?
Whatever its origins, it's fair to say that its effects were devastating.
Younger, previously healthy people appeared to succumb more readily than the elderly or infants.
At least ten percent of those infected, died from the disease.
I did notice that my dad's dad was recorded as having a wife (my paternal grandmother) and three children. I have never heard of two of those children. I wonder...did they die during this outbreak?
So it's back to the Ancestry website to find further details.
Life must have been one long struggle in those days. War, disease, poverty...how did they get through it?
The stories that I've uncovered so far have amazed me. Just my little family has given me such rich material for my writing, and yet I'm still putting off actually getting started on any stories.
Yes, procrastination IS the thief of time.
Note to self - get a move on!

Dad's dad in WW1

I'm amazed! Just logged on again today to the Ancestry website and - I kid you not - the military records of my father's father popped up!
I'm not joking. They literally popped up onto the screen. I'm sure that, last time I was a member, things like this didn't happen.
I suppose, the more information you have in a family tree, the more the site is able to give hints.
Well, whatever the reason behind all these little helpful pushes, I'm grateful.

Today, with very little effort, I have discovered the my dad's dad was 5 foot 8 inches tall, with a fair complexion. I have his chest measurements and certain distinguishing marks, such as tattoos on both forearms. The records say that he had blue eyes. He had pock marks on his thigh.

I can't believe I have so much information now.

His records seem to show that he was in and out of the army, and it's a bit confusing to me - he is down as serving 8 years, being discharged as unfit for war service, re-enlisted, transferred...I just can't get my head round it all. Then, to top it all, it says he is called up for ninety days service in 1921.
So...I've just been trying to find out what was going on around that time.
It seems Lloyd George declared a state of emergency because of the economic slump.
I need to research this. I'm a bit ashamed that, at my age, I don't understand the details of why this happened.
I think the coal mine owners tried to cut wages drastically, I think there was a threatened strike, and I think the government set up the defence force to keep industry going...BUT...I really need to try to understand it fully.
Something to keep me busy for the next few days I think.

It's a small world.

It surely is a small world! Especially now we have that clever little thing called the inter..thingy something or other.
I was just doing a spot of research on the ancestry website last night, trawling through the names and dates, yawn... when up pops a family tree for Samuel. (Remember Sam? He's my granddad on my mum's side - I know, it's a lot to remember, even I'm getting confused to be fair.)
I hadn't posted this particular family tree and so I was quite excited to see it, even though it was incomplete. My mum was missing from it, as well as one of mum's brothers.
I clicked on it, then debated with myself, should I contact the person who had posted it?
Did I contact them? Yes I did! I'm so glad that I did.
I found out an amazing piece of information about one of my uncles, and I have made contact with a long lost cousin.
The background to this uncle's story is quite shocking really. The consequences of his actions were tragic. Someone was killed and this really brings home the very real nature of the research.
Sometimes the people can feel so distant...when I'm looking at names and places in the 1800s it has the feeling of make believe in a way, but when I come across events that happened in the twentieth century it all becomes so much more real.
I spoke with my mum to corroborate the things I'd been told and, surprisingly, she agreed. I had no idea. For years she's never said a word. For years she's hidden this piece of information from us all. For years she stayed away from her brother, maybe because of this tragedy.
I have two brothers. I hope I stay in touch with them both, no matter what, but events in our childhood shape us, and maybe even shape the turns that our lives will take.

Holidays

Back from holiday and feeling quite chilled.
Flew to the one of the Canary Islands and relaxed for two weeks in the sunshine. Perfect weather, just like our summers used to be when I was a child.
Odd really, I always remember the wonderful summers and the spectacular winters.
As kids, we would be taken for our annual caravan holiday at the seaside. We spent every day in swimsuits and shorts. The sun shone. The blackberries ripened early and we would be sent out with pyrex bowls to pick the luscious fruit for tea. In the small town close by the pavements melted in the blistering heat. We jumped waves that seemed to tower above us, huge watery fists that lifted us off our feet. It's a wonder we didn't drown.
The winters were cold - just as they should be. I remember making an igloo with my brother after one especially heavy, late snowfall. We chiselled blocks of compacted snow and even made ice furniture. I might be wrong, but I seem to think it was quite late - around April I think. At any rate my mum grumbled that it would still be there in June at the rate it was going.
Even then, without central heating, we were lucky. We had a range in the kitchen and a gas fire in the front room, as well as a portable electric heater that, even used sparingly, took the chill off the bedroom.
What must it have been like in the times before electricity?
The dark, cold night, chilblains, open fires that needed raking and setting daily.
As for flying to exotic destinations...forget it.

Off at a tangent

Right, you know how sometimes you just want to focus on one path, but suddenly another crosses the path that you're on?
Well, that has happened to me.
My mother in law was chatting yesterday and, oddly, I found myself listening carefully to what she was saying.
It was the usual start...rambling about this and that, general stuff - mostly about people we have never met or are ever likely to. It struck me what a head for detail she has, especially when recalling the distant past.
Suddenly she was back in nineteen o blob and telling me about her mother, who was blind.
Now, I knew that Grandma was blind, and I've always had the utmost admiration for her, given that she and her (blind) husband worked hard and raised five children.
What I hadn't realised though were the circumstances in which she had found out that she was going blind.
...and here's the really poignant part...
Grandma was eleven years old. Her eyesight started to fail. Certain people suggested old wives' remedies, such as blowing sugar into her eyes...well, I can only imagine how painful that must have been.
She had waited for an appointment at the hospital. It came - the date for her to attend was on her eleventh birthday.
On attending this appointment she was told that she was definitely going blind. There was no doubt about it, in fact, she would soon be completely blind and therefore she must be taken immediately to the Blind School.
So, on her eleventh birthday, she is taken straight from the hospital to the Blind School and left there as a boarder.
To add insult to injury, her beautiful long hair, long enough to sit on, was cut off to a short bob.
Was she bitter? Seems not, as, when asked, she simply said that it made total sense. The people looking after her and the other children had enough to do without having to worry about brushing numerous heads of glorious locks.
How very pragmatic.
Makes me feel ashamed of myself.