This is where I bring you up-to-date with what has been keeping me excited family-history-wise over the past few weeks!
My best bit of recent news is that I’ve found the answer to a family history mystery that has been bothering me for some time. A few years ago, I came across five (blank) postcards with black-and-white photographs of early twentieth-century Montreal. With my family mainly originating in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Somerset, these views of metropolitan Canada have always seemed a little out of place!
This week, all became clear.
I’d been looking at my Great Uncle Walter Gillings’ First World War Naval record. I knew that he had lived in Gateshead, joined the Royal Naval Reserve Volunteers in 1916 and was tragically washed overboard ship and drowned in December 1917, leaving behind a young widow and one year old daughter. This awful maritime tragedy looms large in the collective memory of the family – so much so that I had overlooked something else in the records. Before his time in the Royal Navy, Walter had been a member of the Montreal Volunteers for eighteen months – right at the beginning of the war.
I now know where the postcards came from!
In other news, my blog (www.ruthasymes.com) now has a Research Services page – Family History Research Services. – searchmyancestry – Ruth A. Symes which I’m hoping to expand upon in time. I’ve been working with clients tracing family in Cheshire, North Yorkshire, West Sussex and East Anglia recently. I’ve also successfully found a living relative – the long lost half-brother of a friend!
Nothing quite beats the joys of doing this kind of research.
Finally, as my husband has roots in Tanzania, I’ve enjoyed reading the wonderful novel An Ice Cream War by William Boyd. This fills in a lot of useful detail about British East Africa during World War One.
I always love to hear about other people’s research. So do post anything that springs to mind in the comments, or send me an email.
Till next time!
Ruth
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Hi Ruth, This is fascinating, thanks. I don’t recall ever hearing about your Great Uncle Walter Gillings! Whose side of the family was he on? Very tragic that he died so young during the First World War. This happened to your Grandpa’s brother also as I recall. Love Graham xx
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Grandpa’s brother was killed in France also in 1917. Sadly, our family lost two young men in WW1. Walter Gillings was my dad’s mother’s brother.
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