Grassy Settings for Family Fun - Sepia Saturday

This week’s prompt photograph from  Sepia Saturday features friends enjoying  a picnic.  I have only one match of a picnic, but take a look at other photos of family enjoying themselves on grass.  

 

A 1950s  family picnic  with my parents, aunt,  brother  &  myself.   

   

In the back garden -  left my first photograph with my father, and right with my mother  and our kitten.  A pity no one thought to move the dustbin from the shot!  Late 1940s.  

 

 

In the same back garden, with my father enjoying a smoke. 

 

 

 My first photograph with my brother.

   

 

        

 At my grandparent's house with my grandmother , the rather frail figure with her three daughters, peggy, edith and Kathleen (my mother).  c.1940. 

                

                       

      The same garden.  lLttle me with my aunt a

 

 My parents  looking very smart - the occasion my graduation from Edinburgh University,  in 1965.

 

The family photogaph I took with me,  as I  set out for a year in the USA on a library exchange scheme, 196.

 

 

 

 Enjoying the sun on a break on Nantucket Island, Mass. USA 

 

Onto more recent times:   

 

1981 and the back garden of our home in Hawick in the Scottish Borders.  It is summer and this is my first attempt (and virtually the last)  at cooking on a barbecue, but my efforts fell foul of the weather - hence the umbrella. Did I really need that watering can there as a health & safety measure?   

 

 

 

 

     

Playtime in the garden for daughter  1975

 

 

Granddaughter bright eyed for her first day at school, 2012

 

 

 

                        

Happy landing on grass for granddaughter  

 

          

         

Practicing handstands on our front lawn  

 

Our dog joins in the fun , enjoying a long chew on the grass of our back garden in Hawick.  

 

 

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 Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity

 to share their family history through photographs.

 

  

 

 

Click HERE to read posts  

from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

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Motor Bikes to the Fore - Sepia Saturday

A man and woman, dressed in leather coats,  sit by their motor cycle in the latest prompt photograph  from  Sepia Saturday.

Cue for me to turn to my local heritage group Auld Earlston,  In 2017   we presented an exhibition entitled “Horses to Horse Power” looking at transport down the ages.  The resulting display included images of  enterprising women on motor bikes.  

 

The 1950s was the golden age of the motor cycle and side car    and I have memories of my uncle Harry driving one with my aunt sitting upright in a cramped sidecar.   It could mean a bumper ride with little protection against the elements. 

There was just one photograph in my family collection that fitted this week's theme  and one I have shown before .  Here  in c.1949 is my husband as the little boy on the back of his  father's motor bike, which I am told was a  pre-war 500cc Rudge Spurts Special.

 

The one feature that strikes us now about all these photographs.   - the riders were oblivious in their choice of clothing  to the potential dangers we identify today. 

 

 

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 Sepia Saturday gives bloggers an opportunity

 to share their family history through photographs.

 

 

 

Click HERE to read posts  from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

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It Started with a Shoebox - My 15 Year Genealogy Journey

This week marks 15 years of 

my blogging journey. 

How Did it All Begin?    

It started with a shoebox of old photographs and memorabilia  in a cupboard at my grandfather''s house. It was a grand treat to be allowed to look through them.  I especially loved the embroidered postcards that Grandad has sent back from Flanders Field in the First World War.  Grandad (William Danson of Poulton le Fylde, Lancashire)  was one of eight brothers, five of whom had served in the army and whose photographs featured among the collection.  Grandad, like many men, would never talk about the war, but my aunt related tales of her uncles.

From primary school days, history was my favourie subject, and I was keen to find out more about my ancestors. I started with drawing  up a basic Danson family tree back to my great grandparents

 

     Cards sent to my mother  and aunt  in  1917 and 1918

My interest though was most inspired by this photogaph of my great grandmother Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe, here with her eldest granddaughter Annie Maria Danson, my mother's cousin.

Maria looked a formidable figure  and her Christian  name had echoes of a Spanish flavour, whilst her surname Rawcliffe reflected typical Lancashifre grit. There was also an apocryphal story that "Granny's dark looks" came from Spanish sailors who settled in the fear after their  ship wrecked off he coast.  

Early Research  in Pre-Internet Days

Many years later I began the ancestral trail, but money was short to buy certificates  and I had only limited time in Lancashire when visiting my Danson relations. Blackpool Public Library gave me access to census returns - a laborious search trawling through microfilms or getting eyestrain from the  IGI mirofiches.  I joined Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Society whose members were  helpful , particularly in finding records for me in Lancashire Record Office - including copies of two Danson wills of 1821 and 1833.

 We got a Computer!

I wrote on Word my first family history narrative on Maria  and had it spiral bound at a local printers,  A few years later  I became a silversurfer  as we went online.  I was in my element searching census returns, and old parish records, joining ancestry.co.uk  and posting queries on message boards. 

I became a Blogger in 2010    

 I was first  introduced  to the blogging world through my work  and an article in the magazine  "Women in Home" about starting a blog if you enjoyed writing, had time to write regularly and were passionate about a subject - well  I ticked all  the boxes and Family History Fun was born - and I have never looked back. 

 When I set up my blog, why did I  choose the user name “ScotSue”, when I was unaware of any Scottish ancestry?

The reason -  I have now lived in Scotland for 64 years, studied here and worked here in tourism, including ancestral tourism,   in local studies and archives where family history inquiries  were a key responsibility.  I was keen to get across on my blog that I was knowledgeable on Scotland -  its  history, geography and genealogical sources. The “Scotsue”  name has served me well!  "Family History Fun" was meant to convey my enthusiasm for my hobby, but looking back is a tad  inappropriate for much of the events on the ancestral trail.  

I think of my blog as my personal family history magazine and enjoy learning from other bloggers  as I developed my style  of writing and presentation.  My Danson/Rawcliffe research, together with the photo collection provided me with plenty of stores to share. The support and comments from fellow bloggers and "online" friends has been invaluable - I would not want to be without my blog!

I never expected to last this long,  when I  tentatively wrote my first post back in August 2010.    My main concern then was "Is anyone finding this and more importantly actually reading it?" A few arms were twisted with  friends and relations to sign up as my first followers.  Writing  comments on other blog posts soon widened my group of followers - very few from Britain, mainly Australia, Canada and the USA. Let's  face it, although. we enjoy writing,  recognition from others is a great motivator. 

I thought I would soon run out of material, but the online  prompts  and inspiration from other bloggers have been so stimulating.   Two unknown third cousins, one from my birth town, and one in the USA,  gave  me a big shot in the arm, in providing me with  with fresh stories and photographs. 

 

Reconnecting with Relatives 

Four cousins of my mother were still alive, though I had had no contact with them since childhood.  A family funeral was an occasion to meet one such cousin, A.   and exchange contact details.  

I phoned P. and introduced myself as "A voice from the past -  I am Kathleen Danson's daughter" .

 What a wonderful reception I got  - P. outlined the family memorabilia she had up in the loft  and offered to come up to Scotland to visit us,  and my husband and I made a return visit the next year. The result of making contact, I received:

• Memories of my grandparents William and Alice Danson - my grandmother died when I was a baby.  It was somehow funny in the nicest possible way to hear my grandparents referred to as  Uncle Billy and Auntie Alice. Also memories of my great grandmother Maria, her daughter Jennie and Maria's  eight sons. 

• I touched personal possessions of Maria including her favourite teaset,  and jewellery sent back to her from Malta, where son Frank was hospitalized during the First World War.
   
• Family  photographs of Maria and her daughter Jenny  that I had not seen before. and the only photograph I have  of my great grandfather James Danson (1852-1906), the bearded  figure,  sitting merry in Poulton old stocks. Plus two poignant letters written by my youngest great uncle George, just weeks before he was killed on the  Somme in 1916, aged just 22. 

 

• Overall  I could not have asked for a better boost to my blogging activity and a more rounded view of my ancestors, beyond the purely names and dates in my family tree - exactly what family history is all about. 
  

So the message here is do not dither and delay in reconnecting with relatives - you never know what might result. 

Joining Facebook 

Many bloggers said I was missing out by not using social media. So  I set up a link for my blog with Facebook and have attracted new readers,  But I have also loved accessing the wealth of genealogical sites on Facebook, learning and sharing my own knowledge.  Pinterest has done nothing for me in terms of my family history. 

Joining the World of Modern Genealogy - DNA

I must admit that my knowledge of DNA was rather sketchy and I was always under the impression that I needed a relation to test with me – and I come from a small family that includes three of my mother’s cousins even older than myself and not online. However a friend convinced me otherwise, and that  I would understand the results.  So I took the plunge with Ancestry and have enjoyed following up my matches - with some good results in discovering unknown 2nd and 3rd cousins and sharing information and photographs.  Some disappointments as it has done nothing to break down my major brick wall and frustrating the people who do not reply to queries or have no family trees online, but overall well worthwhile . And nothing showed up to prove I had a Spanish background from my great grandmother Maria! 

 Last Year Saw  My Long  Patience Rewarded 

My major brick wall  over many years was the lack of information on my maternal grandmother Alice English (below)  who married William Danson.  My mother and aunt were very cagey on her early life  and I sensed not to ask questions.  I put numerous queries on message boards and Facebook pages without success.  I was always told we shared the same birthday 23rd September and census returns gave her birthplace as Bolton, Lancashire  but no certificate could be traced.  Bolton turned out to be a fabrication.   

                             

Then a message came though from contributor on the Find My Past Forum - an Alice English was born illegitimately in Liverpool Workhouse  23rd September 1883.  This was my grandmother!   I was able to trace her background, though not her father - she was one of five sisters.  Her early life was sad;  she was in domestic service from an early age and  and did not appear to have lived with her mother.   So my patience was eventually  rewarded!  

Family History never comes to an end and  

my Genealogy Journey is still ongoing -

 I am definitely not ready to stop yet!   

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A Century of Families Together - Sepia Saturday

My cousin's Great Grandparents -  Joseph  & Mary Oldham and Family. c.1908

Here are Joseph Prince Oldham (left) and his wife Mary Alice Knowles (right) with their son and heir John William Oldham,  and three daughters - Edith (standing), young Beatrice (holding the dog lead),  and seated  Sarah Alice.

The Oldham family of Blackpool, Lancashire were carters and coal merchants for three generations.  The business was founded around 1890, steadily became prosperous and in 1905 moved to near North Station, Blackpool in a house with a large yard, hay loft, tack room. and stabling for around seven horses. An accident at the coal sidings in the railway station resulted in Joseph being blinded and he died in 1921, with his will, signed with his "mark". 

Joseph's son  John William took over the business.  Five  years earlier, John had married my grandfather's cousin Mary Jane Bailey.  

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Weddings of course are a great occasion  for family group photographs - as seen here: 

 A magnificent array of hats (and buttonholes)  in this wedding group at the marriage in 1910  of  Wilfred Hyde and Annie Coombes, relations of Stuart's wife.

 

 Another Coombs wedding -  Albert Leslie Williams & Hilda Florence Coombs in London  in 1931. 

  
At this time, hats in the  Dutch style were obviously in fashion across the country  for bridesmaids - below at the wedding in 1929 at Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire  of my great aunt Jennie Danson to Beadnell  (Bill) Stemp.  

 

 Jennie was the last child and only daughter out of a large family  of sons, born to James Danson and Maria Rawcliffe.  At her wedding she was given away by her eldest brother  Robert Danson (on the left),  The little bridesmaid on the left was  my aunt Peggy Danson, with the matron  of honour on the right, Jennie's niece Annie who had married a year earlier.

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 TTree generations of the New Zealand branch of the Oldham family, c.1927 

The little girl, Edith Nancy stands between her grandmother Sarah Oldham, ee Cross and her father and mother seated  - James William Oldham and Edith Keyner.  Arthur Oldham,  Standing are young Dorothy Lilla and grandfather Arthur Oldham.   

Alfred and Sarah Oldham emigrated to  New Zealand in 1906, where they ran a wholesale tobacconists and stationery business on Karangahape Road,  Auckland.   

 

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Onto 1938 and a post-wedding photograph.   This is the only photograph I have,   where I can identify my  paternal grandfather.  It was taken in the garden of my mother's home,  after my parent's wedding  with Mum's  parents (William and Alice Danson) on the left,  and my father's parents on the right (Mary and Albert Weston)

 

 

 

 

 

A wartime picture of my grandmother, Alice Danson, nee English, with her youngest daughter Peggy (the tiny bridesmaid above)  who served in the  WAAF on a barrage balloon station, Alice's  son-in-law,  my father, serving in the RAF Code & Ciphers Division   and,  Alice's youngest son Billy, ith his Italian born wife.  

And to bring us more up to date to a typical 1950's family - my parents with myself and brother Christopher - probably taken by my aunt who often joined us on outings. By today's standards, we are very formally dressed for a picnic, with my father wearing a jacket, collar & tie and my mother a stylish dress and necklace.   I am in my school blazer and note my  Clark sandals that all little girls seemed to wear then.  

 

 

 

 

 Three generations - myself, my mother and my daughter, 1981. 

 

Nearly 30 years later -  I am the granny, with daughter and granddaughter, 

With thanks  to my cousin Stuart's collection for his contribution towards my theme this week of  of "Families Together". 

 

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SSepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity to share their family history and memories  through photographs.

                              

Click HERE to see what other Sepia Saturday bloggers 
have come up with this week. 

 

 

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Great Grandmother's Eleven Sisters: Sepia Saturday

My great grandmother Maria Rawcliffe (left)  0f Hambleton , Lancashire  was one of eight sisters,  two half-sisters and two step-sisters -  twelve in all.  

 

Maria’s was a story of  eight daughters, born to my great great grandparents,  the early death of their mother;   a stepmother  who came to the marriage with two illegitimate daughters, and subsequently bore two half sisters.   

 

The life of the Rawcliffe  family illustrated the vicissitudes of Victorian society   with infant deaths, illegitimacy, early widowhood, remarriages, plus the discovery  of my first emigrant ancestor seeking a new life in the  USA.

My great great grandfather  Robert Rawcliffe lived 1821-1904, dying at the age of 83. He married Jane Carr in 1846, withe birth of Maria's sisters as follows:

1.  Anne (1847-1928) - was  the  first first of eight daughter. named after her paternal grandmother.  In the 1861 census  she was living   away from home as a 13 year old servant.   Aged about 25 she had an illegitimate daughter  Jane Alice,  and a year later married  gamekeeper Robert Roskell.  One of her three daughters was named Maria,  after her aunt. ). But burial records revealed early deaths in the family - infant twin son Matthew died at three weeks old in 1882 and eldest daughter Jane died in 1887, aged only fourteen;   with husband  Robert dying in 1894 at the young age of 42. 

 

By the time of  the 1901 Census, Anne, was  a grocer/shopkeeper  and had  moved from a small rural village of Thistleton  to the town of Fleetwood,  where she married her second husband John Jenkinson. She died   4 April 1928 and was buried, not in Fleetwood, but beside her first husband and young children at St. Anne's Church, Singleton.(right)   Her age on her gravestone was given as 79. 

2.  Jane (1850-1926) - was the second daughter, named after her mother and paternal grandmother.  She married Thomas Riley in 1873.  The photograph below came from an internet contact descendant and shows four generations of their  family. 

 Jane Riley, nee Rawcliffe with her son George (left) grandson (Jack) and Jack's baby son George Robert who did not survive infancy.

3.  Margaret (1852-1852)  -  third daughter was born 11th November 1852, but only lived for  three weeks, buried 4th December 1882. 

4. Alice (1853-1930)  - the fourth daughter was christened Alice Margaret, perhaps   in remembrance of the baby sister who had died a year earlier. In the 1871 census she was a domestic servant, and two years later married John Mason, a general labourer. Six children were born and then In 1886-87 they  took the momentous decision to leave the fishing port of Fleetwood for the teeming tenements of Brooklyn, New York. where they had a further five children.  Alice is my blog success story, as my third cousin, a descendant of Alice's youngest daughter Florence, found my blog and gave me a wonderful collection  of stories and photographs.  

 

 Alice (centre) with her husband John Mason, and their eight surviving children.  

5.  Jennet (1856-1902)  - in 1873 she was a witness at the marriage of her sister Jane to Thomas Riley, with the other witness Thomas's brother Richard.  Five years later, Jennet and Richard married.  But happiness was short lived for Richard died in 1891 aged just 33.  The census of that year saw Jennet a widow with son Thomas 9 years old. Daughter Jane was traced to the home of Jennet's sister.  Jennet remarried a seaman Edward Alexander Braham.  But again their marriage was cut short with the death of Jennet in 1902, aged 45 - the first of the five surviving Rawcliffe sisters to die.  

 

6.  (The birth of my grandmother - Maria (1859-1919). 

7.  Peggy (1861-1861)  - was the last of the Rawcliffe sisters to be traced. Her short life lasted only sixteen days. 

8. Martha (1863-1863) - the baptism entry for Martha was a puzzle, for she was given the middle name "Septima" meaning seventh daughter, - yet she was the eighth.  Also how did her parents, with Robert an agricultural labourer, and with Jane making their mark on their marriage certificate,  know about the Latin inspired name?  The third puzzle - why did my great grandmother Maria adopt the name Martha Maria for many official records, including her marriage certificate?  Maria could hardly have remembered her baby sister.     

So  Robert's wife, Jane, gave birth to eight  children in a sixteen year period.    Jane was aged 44 at the birth of her youngest daughter Martha and died two years later, buried on 4^th May 1865, leaving her five  young daughters motherless at the ages of 6, 8, 11, 14 and 17.  Jane and her baby daughters were all buried at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Hambleton.  Unfortunately there are no gravestones, and no listings.

 

In 1875 Robert married his second wife Elizabeth Brekall, twenty years his junior and they had four children in six years, including two daughters - half sisters to my great grandmother.

9. Grace (1876-?) - perhaps named after Robert's sister,  Grace.  In the 1891 census she was a domestic servant in Wardley’s, a pub on the banks of the River Wyre , near Hambleton.

10,   Margaret (1881-?)  No baptism records were traced for this second group of Rawcliffe children and more research  needs to be done into their lives. 

But there was a second dimension to Robert's second marriage.  For  Elizabeth Brekall came to the marriage with three children of her own, ia son and two daughters:

10. Dorothy, born in 1861 in Stalmine, Lancashire. More research need here.  

11. Mary Ellen,  born in 1869 in Stalmine Lancashire.  By  the time of the 1901 census, she was married to John Walmsley Raby  and had two daughters.  Also with with the family was Mary's mother Elizabeth Rawcliffe, nee Brekall.  Was she just visiting on census  night, because her husband Robert did not die until 1904?   Elizabeth was still with the Raby family in the 1911 census.      

  

So at the age of 16, Maria acquired two new step sisters. I naturally assumed they were children of Elizabeth's first husband  - the  classic family history mistake  - do not assume!  For her wedding certificate to Robert identified Elizabeth as a spinster.  

One cannot help speculate on the circumstances that led Elizabeth to bear three illegitimate children over a thirteen year span. The children were all baptised,  but no father named on their record. The earlier census returns showed that Elizabeth and her children were living with her parents, with her father an agricultural labourer, so times must have been hard.  

The 1881 census showed a crowded Rawcliffe household with father Robert 61, a farmer of three acres,   Elizabeth 41 and  six children, ranging from two  months old to eleven years .  

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Maria (1859-1919)
Perhaps not surprisingly,  my great grandmother Maria  appears to have left home not long after her father's second marriage.   She married James Danson in 1877 at the age of 18, with the address on her marriage certificate that of her eldest married sister Anne.   

The sisters remained close, judging by the tradition of naming their daughters after their sisters, with Anne, Jane and Jennet all ending their lives in the town of Fleetwood. 

Maria is at the heart of my family history research and writing, featuring regularly on my blog. Ironically, as one of so many sisters, she went on to have ten sons (eight surviving infancy), and finally her only daughter Jennie. 

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Sepia Saturday give bloggers an opportunity 

to share their family history

 

 

 

 Click HERE to read posts from other Sepia Saturday bloggers.

 

 

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