the lure of the past

Current work: Rome-set Riva
Listening to: Corelli
Reading: next on TBR

My family history research is ticking along. I’m looking into my mum’s family at the moment. On my grandmother’s side, I’ve just managed to work back to my great-great-great-grandfather, who was born in Lymington in 1798. William was a labourer; his wife Jane, born in 1802, was a charwoman. Have to admit, it was really exciting to find I’d got all the way back to the 1841 census… and then a bit disappointing to realise that I might be stuck now, as the church records for the parishes I need aren’t online, and at this point I’m also pre the 1837 registrations.

On my grandfather’s side, I need to check certain things out to confirm them, but James my engineer great-great-grandfather from London may originally have been a printer (which means that I do indeed have a publishing connection… except it’s not the side I thought it was, and it’s typography rather than writing).

The sea captain and the midwife (and the Danish connection) are still hiding. Usually there is a kernel of truth in family stories, albeit maybe distorted by time; my theory is that the ‘sea captain’ was an ordinary mariner, and his wife came from Jersey rather than from Denmark. Not sure where the nursing bit fits in, so there’s some more digging to be done.

In other news, sigh, someone scraped my car in the car park. DH managed to get most of it out, but there’s a deep score and a dent, so I guess I’ll have to take it to the repair shop once the warranty work on the cooling system has been sorted out. I would rather have spent that money on taking my kids out during the summer holidays, but there you go: we live in a selfish society where people are quick to blame others but don’t like accepting responsibility for their actions. (Take rant as read – and LOL, if one of those ‘accident’ solicitors approaches me today, he/she will get the full rant!)