G is for Grandparents & Gathering Memories

My Theme

Family History Meets Local History - 

Sources and Stories from England & Scotland 

G is for GRANDPARENTS &  GATHERING MEMORIES

How often do you tell yourself  about  a relative  "I do wish I had asked questions about that ".    Regrets about not gathering memories at the right time is inevitably  part of our research journey, and we tend only to realise this  when we become involve in our hobby and when   it is too late.

This is the only photograph I have of my four GRANDPARENTS - William Danson & Alice English on the left and Albert Weston & Mary Barbara Matthews on the right - taken after my parent's wedding in 1938.

Grandparents sadly did not play much of a part in my life with my father's father and my mother's mother dying when I was a baby.  

We lived some distance away from my father's Weston family in the English Midlands  and only saw my grandmother, aunt and uncles once or at the most twice  a year. Few family memorabilia has survived and my father's family remained shadowy. I can never recall having much of a conversation with Nana Weston  who died when I was in my teens. 

My father often spoke about his childhood and I did persuade him to write these down but I got little sense of his parents as individuals, beyond the fact that  Nana came from a Methodist family  in Wolverhampton.

"We had a palace organ  double keyboard.  Mum was very musical   and would play the organ on a Sunday night with Dad on the  violin,  - we sang either Methodist hymns or hymns from the Ancient & Modern Hymn Book."

Nana - Mary Barbara Weston, nee Matthews 

I knew my granddad Danson  much better and have memories of him buying my brother and I a bag of pear drops every Sunday, showing us the auction mart where he once worked as a cattle man, taking us out on a walk around the nearby countryside and collecting  leaves and berries etc. for the nature table at school.  But he was a taciturn,  country man  and I knew from my mother  that he would never talk about his First World War experiences,  when he was awarded the Military Medal. 

My grandparents (centre) William, Alice with their children Edith, Peggy, Harry and Kathleen with youngest son Billy missing from the  family group c.1940

Grandmother Alice Danson, nee English (1884-1945)  is my major, major brick wall in that I have been unable to trace a birth certificate or early census entries.   I sensed that my mother and aunt were reluctant to answer my questions on her early life;  even my father could not throw any light on Alice, nor my mother's cousins.  Was she perhaps illegitimate?    I was left, though with an impression that Alice was  clearly well respected, by the family and the local community. 

My mother and aunt were my main source of family memories, but how I wish I had written these  down, as I am left with only vague, often conflicting details. Was my grandmother  born in Bolton, Liverpool  or Manchester?  I had to wait patiently until 2011 and the release of the 1911 census to see it stated Bolton.

But it was at my grandfather's house where as a treat, I was shown the shoe-box of old family photographs and memorabilia kept in a cupboard by the fireplace  - the beginning of my ancestral trail.

 

 One of the many First World War cards  sent by my grandfather 

from Flanders Field to his wife and children back home.

So gathering memories from older relatives can be a sensitive issue, but also a rewarding experiencing when successful.  The key message is:  don't leave it too late.

But gathering memories of  a place connected  with your family can often help  fill the gap when family records, memories and memorabilia records are slight.

My local heritage group Auld Earlston has a "Sharing Memories" project where we gather memories from older residents on such topics as  wartime life, the shops (long gone)  in the village, working in the mill (closed 1969)   and travelling  by railway railway (closed 1963).  These memories are published on our blog and feature in our popular annual exhibitions.

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