Autumn Cottage Diarist

So What IS it About Family History That Gets Right Under Our Skins?

I've discovered some new resources for researching my own family history online in the last few days; The National Library of Wales has generously put millions of Welsh Newspapers Online  and searchable - (free) while London Lives also have a number of databases covering the 18th century in London - also free to search. Since I discovered - a few years ago - that my Somerset based grandfather had, in fact, been born in Sheffield, I have struggled to find out exactly where and recently acquired the address of his birth, from which a photograph was found on the immensely comprehensive Picture Sheffield site.

Interior of St Andrew Holborn - London place of my 3x Great-grandfather's wedding in 1777

It is no exaggeration to say that I have spent two days like a woman possessed - hopping from one link to another to another, copying, downloading, extracting information - filling in gaps, adding pieces to the jigsaw, imagining who these people were, how they lived, hope they coped, what gave them joy - what devastated them.

Rustlings Place, Ecclesall Bierlow, Sheffield - birthplace of my maternal Grandfather, George Silcox

But apart from the individual details about how my own small life is connected by a web to so many others, it also makes me regularly think about why I find the topic so fascinating - and why society has become so increasingly absorbed with the concept of 'Who We Think We Are' in the last couple of decades. The internet undoubtedly has a lot to answer for - researches which would have taken days, weeks, even years, and entailed  the expenditure of many pound and travels of many miles can now be done at the click of a key. Moreover, the links between people - the matching up of dates and descriptions - can also be done almost instantly, with cross referencing and thus validation of otherwise tentative links, giving us the confidence to go forward.

Memorial to a Welsh ancestor - my 4 x G-Grandfather, the Rev. George Williams of Llantrithyd

But I think there are also other issues at play; as families and communities become fragmented, stories get lost or forgotten - and our stories tell us who we are. I believe that we all have a deep need to 'know our place' - we need to know where we fit in to the stories - the stories that stretch back before our own tiny lives (our lives get to feel quite tiny and insignificant as we grow older and experience setbacks as well as accomplishments, don't they?) and will stretch forward, into the future, carrying our own contributions to the as-yet-unwritten story that will stretch forward after we are gone.

When working as a bereavement counsellor, I sometimes hear people saying things like 'I feel as if part of me has died/been buried with (the deceased loved one)' - it may seem like a metaphorical description of how bereavement feels, but clients are often very comforted and uplifted when I affirm to them that - in one way - that is exactly what has happened;  part of my client's story that was shared with the loved one  has indeed  died - but I also remind them that part of the loved one has also remained with them - memories of words and actions which influenced them, built them, moulded them - the parts that cannot die while they are still kept alive -  by remembering and acting upon them - building their lessons into our own lives.

It's yet another reason for writing things down, my friends; write down your stories…save, contemplate, discuss and act upon those images, artefacts, words… it's one way that we can all grasp a fragment of immortality: by remembering - and learning from the richness of our shared, collective stories.

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The Sadnesses and Jollities of Death

Having recently been more than a little under the weather, today I escaped the confines of the house for pleasure for the first time in about a month. I expect you can guess where I escaped to…

The owners of The Junk Shop in Hungerford Antiques Arcade were unpacking the products of a house clearance that they had done - so much new 'stuff' to browse through and I was fortunate enough to see the first pickings as the boxes were emptied. Yet, along with the thrill of the chase, I was also left thinking 'there is someone's life in a few cardboard boxes'.

All the little treasures that the last owners of these items had collected over the years, mixed up with what others of us would consider trash - all gathered together as a mere collection of artefacts - items without their stories, just pieces of copper, brass, china, glass; no inkling of where they came from, who bought them, or why. No idea of the effect that their purchase had - a surprise gift for a mother? a get-well gift for a friend?…a tea-set given to help set up home? all of them, story-less, identity-less,  probably 'cleared' as the result of a death and a closing up of a home.

It left me thinking, yet again, of how we have rituals for most events in life; we celebrate  and commemorate a birth or a marriage, we gather to mourn and say farewell to a person at a death - but we do not seem, as a society, to have a ritual for closing a house and saying farewell to the more material components of a person - even though those treasured (or even despised) items and that place we call 'home' will have played a significant role in their lives.

I am not quite correct when I say that I am not aware of any rituals for such an event - as usual, if you need a ritual, it is often a Jewish person who will be wonderfully competent at  coming up with one! Several years ago, I came across a ritual which had been specifically written by Rabbi Richard Hirsh, as a farewell and thanksgiving to his parents' home, which was about to be sold, but which had played  a hugely significant part in all their lives.

He wanted to acknowledge this, give thanks and create closure. I think it is a lovely idea and I have shared the concept with more than one person who was struggling to come to terms with both the loss of a parent and the home which they had created. Perhaps it is something more of us could create and put out into the world as and when the need is felt.

But I was at the Arcade to seek treasure for myself and happily I met there my long time book dealer friend, Martin, who runs what must be one of the most enticing of old book shops (Countryside Books) in the Arcade as well as a monthly book sale in his home village (which I simply *cannot* allow myself to attend these days!!). He was on hand to give me a good deal on the framed print from 1829 upon which my eye had fallen, principally because the topic was a funeral in a graveyard full of very merry mourners, all apparently singing the farewell song to 'Tom Moody' the 'whipper in' of the local hunt, who, as star of the show, is presumably already at the bottom of the very fine grave at the centre of the picture. The words and music to said song are set out for participants' use at the bottom of the print (and can be read here if you click on the print to enlarge it).

The scene is anything but morbid; on the contrary it is all rather jolly - added to which are some rather interesting depictions of Georgian costume. Tally Ho, Tally Ho - in the grave he shall go! Meanwhile, the print will become another pleasing addition to my rapidly expanding  Museum of Mortality.