Filling the Gaps

Last week I wrote essentially about mother and daughter, Mary and Sarah Batley.  This week's story begins with Mary's first son and Sarah's brother, George, who I said had been born in Norwich in 1851.  Having grown up in Norwich and its suburbs, it will be no surprise to learn that it was in St Mark's, Lakenham, on the southern side of the city, that he was married on 13th October 1873 to a Norwich girl, Jemima Green.  She bore him six children but, sadly two of them died shortly after birth.

As I traced the lives of this family through the censuses, gradually certain gaps were isolated, that would need a bit more attention.  Their second son, George William, born 28th July 1876, was an example.  He was missing in 1901, but reappeared in 1911 with a wife and family of three children.  They had been married for just 8 years; his wife Florence Annie had been born in Ireland: could this explain where George had been in 1901?

Another gap in 1901 was George's younger brother William John, born 12th October 1880 (this was the second use of those names: his brother had died just weeks old, and the names re-used ... as was often the case).  This gap was easier to fill, though.  As I had found many years ago in the case of my great-uncle, William had joined the army and was in barracks at Colchester.  This find opened up new lines of investigation as I pursued the answers regarding George.

Although George and Florence had been married in Norwich, their first son was born in ... Colchester, another significant clue.  At this point, discoveries were coming thick and fast and - even thought it was scarcely a week ago - I can't clearly recall their sequence.  I found Florence's baptism record, showing that this took place in Athlone in the county of Roscommon, although my recent Irish holiday told me that Athlone is in Westmeath.  Study of maps new and old, however, revealed that part of the town lies to the west of the Shannon and was therefore correctly described as Roscommon.  Characteristic of many such towns in both countries, the border has since been shifted to tidy things up.  I also found Florence's birth registration, which revealed the address as 'Batteries', which the map confirmed was in that western part of the town.  The name suggested a military connection there, too.

Last weekend found me downloading a score of military records from which I can now report that, having started adult life as a tinker's labourer, George enlisted on 13th October 1896 in the 4th (militia) Bn. of the Norfolk Regiment.  This was a life that he found to his liking, for within the year, now slightly grown in stature and correspondingly a few pounds heavier,  he transferred to the 2nd Battalion on a Short Service enlistment (7 years with the colours followed by 5 on reserve).  The battalion were in South Africa from 4th January 1900 until 10th February 1903, accounting for George's absence from the census.  By the time of his return to these shores, George was a corporal; he and Florence were married shortly after and their first son was born before the end of the year, presumably in married quarters.

George was promoted to Lance-Sergeant in April 1904 and, still so-described, was discharged to the reserve on 28th August 1909.  On the outbreak of war in 1914, he returned to the regiment.  This war was a different one, though.  I haven't discovered what action he saw, if any; a medical report of  March 1915 referred to a bout of influenza in January that had developed into chronic bronchitis, rendering him unfit for military service.  His discharge on medical grounds was confirmed on 22nd March and he died on 31st May.  He was buried with military honours in Norwich cemetery.

Perhaps inspired or encouraged by his brother, William enlisted in the militia on 18th April 1899.  The militia battalion was 'disembodied' in July 1901, a reduction in strength perhaps justified by the progress of the war, but William was re-engaged in April 1905 to complete his term of engagement, having been under regular training in the meantime.  Finally discharged from the regiment on 19th April 1909, on 9th August of that year he signed a Territorial Force attestation with the 1st East Anglian Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.  Like his brother, he seemed set for a military career.  However, he was discharged on 26th May 1911 under 'para 156(3) of Territorial Force Regulations'.  Research tells me that this clause refers to the soldier's own request, so what prompted it remains a mystery.  He was at home in Lakenham at the census two months earlier.

Many questions remain unanswered.  Why did George claim to be two years younger than he actually was (18 instead of 20) when he enlisted?  The medical report in March 1915 gives 'age last birthday' as 39 when in July 1914 he would have been 38.  The civil registration of his death shows age 37 ... still 2 years short.  Another open question is that of Florence's father.  The family appears in the 1901 census in Norwich, showing that he was born in the Norfolk village of Shotesham, and his wife in Ipswich.  I've found no trace of a military record for him, although Florence's birth registration shows his occupation as 'Corpl GR' and they were married in 1875 in Woolwich, another place with military connections.  Over the years I've become familiar with a number of regimental abbreviations but GR is unknown to me.

This whole exercise has revolved around finding people where they aren't expected.  That's a thought that certainly has relevance at this particular weekend and my thoughts go out to all who find themselves 'where they weren't expected' today.  As one friend put it after completing a substantial shopping expedition earlier this week, "I wasn't expecting to be cooking Christmas dinner this year!"

Wherever you are, I wish all my readers all the best for the rest of the festive season and a brighter New Year.

Moving to the City

 A few weeks ago, I wrote about tidying up my family history records, and how that task had been 'agreeably distracted' into tracking one particular family through the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Despite all manner of other interests and seasonal obligations, I'm pleased to say that this has continued and, during the course of this, a number of interesting stories have come to light.

The family I've been looking at is that of my maternal grandfather's maternal grandmother, Eliza Bullingham or Burlingham.  She was the fifth of a family of eight children born to George Burlingham and his wife Mary, formerly Mary Finch, between 1827 and 1844.  In my earlier blog, I wrote of Eliza's eldest sister Sarah, and the discovery that her daughter had married one of Eliza's sons.  This week, I've been following the life and fortunes of Mary, the next of Eliza's siblings.

Mary Burlingham was born in either Thorpe Abbotts or Brockdish (Norfolk villages lying along the Suffolk border in the valley - such as it is - of the river Waveney) and was baptised at Brockdish on 21st October 1832.  At some point in the next two years, the family moved to Wattisfield in West Suffolk, which is where George, her father, had been born and it was there that the rest of the Burlingham children were born.

Meanwhile at South Lopham, just over the border in Norfolk, Norwich-born Thomas Batley (a name sometimes found as Battley or Battely) had married Mary Finch in July, 1825.  William, their first child was born there in 1825 or 6 and then the family moved to nearby Bressingham, where William was baptised on 30th April 1826.  By 1841, they were living in Roydon.  Although about ten miles (depending where their respective houses were located) separate Roydon and Wattisfield, this didn't prevent William Batley and Mary Burlingham meeting and growing attached to each other.  Early in 1849, Mary found herself pregnant and they were married in the June quarter of that year.  Their daughter, named Sarah after her aunt, was born before the year was out.

Much is made of the mid-to-late 19th century being a difficult time for those dependent on agriculture for a living - the 1870s in particular - and the fact that many families moved to the newly industrialised north in search of work.  But it was already difficult for larger families to find work as they grew up in earlier decades.  With their family now complete, late in the 1840s, the Batleys moved to Norwich and at the 1851 census Thomas and Mary and their five youngest children were living at Castle Ditches in the parish of St Michael at Thorn.  William and his wife had left baby Sarah with her grandparents in Wattisfield, and were making a new life for themselves in Norwich, living in Rising Sun Lane in the same parish as William's parents.  Mary, now said to be 21, but in truth somewhat younger, was expecting her second child, George, who was born on 19th May that year.  Both Thomas and William are shown as labourers.

The 1861 census shows that progress had been made in their plans.  By then they were living in Golden Ball Street, William being listed as a shoemaker, while Mary (now revealing her true age, 28) is credited with the occupation of a shoe binder.  Their family then consisted of five children and Mary's 20-year-old sister Maria was also with them, described as a domestic servant.  Whether working for them or outside the family is not indicated.  Most census records list the children in order of age; most that do not show the boys first, followed by the girls.  The sequence of this entry is somewhat strange.  After William and Mary come Sarah, 11, daughter Eliza, 2, and Maria, followed by the boys: Thomas, 6, George, 8 and William, 3.

St Michael at Thorn was close to the centre of the city.  Castle Ditches was, as its name indicates, close to the foot of the great mound on which the Norman castle was built.  By the start of the nineteenth century, it had become a general dumping ground and refuse pit.  The area was levelled and advertised for development in 1826 and it's likely that both Thomas's and William's 1851 homes were part of that development.  Golden Ball Street ran through the middle of the area and obviously the houses there afforded greater accommodation.  As the decades passed, prosperity increased and they moved from parish to parish further out from the city centre.

William and Mary went on to have a family of ten, six sons and four daughters; William died in the summer of 1889 at the age of 62 and later that year daughter Sarah was married.  In the 1891 census Sarah, now the wife of William Meadows, described as a 'Laster and heeler', were living in Quebec Road, while her widowed mother was living with two of her younger sons in nearby Rosary Road, both in St Matthews parish.  William Meadows died in 1906 and Sarah's mother Mary in 1909. In 1911 Sarah was living in the same area, with a teenage lodger, and her brothers and their families close by.  She died in 1925.

Of the parish of St Michael at Thorn, which had played a great part in the family's settling and early life in Norwich, little can be seen today.  The church itself, which stood at the corner of Ber Street and Thorn Lane, was hit by incendiary bombs on 27th June, 1942, leaving only the tower and part of the walls standing.  The whole area was flattened as part of the post-war redevelopment in the 1950s and the church door is the only survivor, having been re-erected in the restored church of St Julian (now something of a tourist attraction) as the entrance to Mother Julian's cell there.

Flat-dwelling

"Curiosity killed the cat" was a proverb often quoted to support not telling children a truth that parents thought was best not shared with them.  I can't vouch for the feline consequences, but curiosity is certainly lethal so far as time is concerned.  I recently wasted an hour or so trying to find out some facts about flat-dwellers.  In particular my quest was simply 'what proportion of people living alone in this country, live in flats?'  Lots of reports touched on one or other characteristic, but nowhere could I find the precise answer to my question ... at least not before giving up the search with the words, 'life's too short!'.

What I did find was that, in 2019, approximately 29.5% of all UK households were single-occupancy, and 'the greater proportion' are men, which could mean as few as 14.8% of households.  But, although owner occupancy by single householders varies from 50% at some ages to 75% at others, nowhere does this seem to be split between flats and detached or semi-detached dwellings.

Whatever that proportion might be, the fact remains that I'm one of them and, in a succession of three dwellings, have been so for the last 21 years.  It's no surprise that, over that time, it's a situation with which I've become familiar and things that others might find peculiar - for example, having two front doors, and hence two front door keys - have become commonplace.

My flat-dwelling familiarity hasn't always been the case.  I'm not suggesting that my parents were snobs - they certainly had no right to be! - but in overheard conversations certain people in the neighbourhood might be referred to thus: 'Old <so-and-so> lives in the flats', the words being uttered in tones that implied that Mr. <so-and-so> was one of a lower class of people, part of a sub-culture that was not to be associated with.  And any suggestion of entering the block of flats to deliver to, or worse, communicate with such people was definitely not to be entertained.

Unquestionably, a block of flats, like any household, has its own smell, that is only noticed briefly on entry and soon becomes part of the normal ambience.  I've noticed this when making deliveries to other blocks on the estate and elsewhere.  Occasionally I've had a visit from a member of the local constabulary, announcing that they've had a report of drugs in the area and asking if I've smelled anything worthy of their attention in this regard.  I'm not sure whether I'm believed, but I usually explain that my sheltered life has meant that I wouldn't be able to identify whether or not an out-of-the-ordinary smell might be drug-related.

I may be fortunate to live in a quiet close, with neighbours who, like me, are busy getting on with their own lives and give me no cause for complaint.  That isn't to say that the place is silent.  In fact, it's quite comforting to have the sound of others nearby.  As I write this I can hear the steady beat of modern music from the flat above, but it's not at a volume to cause interference to my concentration.  Some sounds are of a regular nature, like the couple next door who can be heard nipping outside for a smoke last thing at night, and it's far from uncommon to sit in the toilet and hear a sudden gush in the downpipe just inches from my left ear!  But I know what it is, and that it signifies the existence of life around me, so it's not intrusive.

Occasionally I've developed friendships with my neighbours, but this tends to be the exception rather than the rule.  Usually, the most intense exchanges relate to the taking in of each other's parcels.  The previous owner of the flat next door lived there herself for many years but then moved away and rented it out.  At this point I became her 'eyes and ears' for any threat to her property.  In an earlier flat, I had regularly exchanged greetings with the young lady who lived opposite, but we'd never had a conversation until I was about to move out because my landlord needed to sell the flat.  "I wish I'd known earlier," she told me, "I have a well-paid job in the City and as a result I have savings I want to invest.  I could have bought your flat and you could have stayed there as my tenant."  Such an arrangement would indeed have suited both of us, and that flat was nearer the town centre than my present home, but it wasn't to be.

I think, on balance, that the benefits of not having more rooms to keep clean, having a secure place to park my car - even if I do have to share the closest space on a 'first-come' basis with others who live nearby - and tidy grounds that I don't have to maintain, outweigh the potential of a separate front door onto the street and the constant headache of structural responsibilities.

It Goes Back Centuries!

I've been thinking about words.  Let's face it, despite the variety of our modern lives - or, indeed maybe because of it - they are probably the most common things we have around us ... and that is surely true whether they are in our native tongue, one we've learned at school or since, or one in some foreign language we've never seen before.  Words are words, and we see them on every side.

From time to time I've seen 'tests' on social media that give credence to a calculated claim that the inside of words is far less important than the combination of their length, context and their initial and final letters.  Indeed, a tweet this morning provided me with two examples of this very fact.  It was actually a reply to one I'd spotted yesterday but which, being puzzled by it and unable to understand its point, I had passed over.  Yesterday's section of the story concerned a supermarket's in-store sign showing a glass of milk and the two words 'Lleath' and 'Milk', with the caption 'Another entrant to the milk war!'.  This morning's response cited another sign (no picture this time), saying 'I had a similar argument with <name of national supermarket chain> over Psygod!'

Now, in my travels, I've been into stores in both Scotland and Wales and have seen many signs like this that are written in both English and either Gaelic or Welsh, and the fact that I've now been learning Welsh on and off for three or four years, meant that the words for milk and fish are common to me.  Hence, my puzzlement why there should be consternation over a milk sign bearing both languages.  This morning, however - fish being less common in my lessons than milk - I suddenly realised that 'Psygod' should read 'Pysgod', and I looked back at 'last night's milk'.  Sure enough, it should have read 'Llaeth', and the meaning of the exchange became crystal clear.

Geography isn't the only thing that affects words and their use.  History must bear its share of the blame for word-confusion.  This morning, shortly after reading that second tweet, I was planning what turned out to be quite a busy day and caught myself muttering, 'Now let's set these things in order.'  I've read somewhere that a preposition is not the way to end a sentence; whether true or not, it's stuck in my memory ever since I read it and, if true, it would surely apply to the phrase as much as to the single word, so my mind set about re-phrasing what I'd said: 'Now let's set in order these things.'

You can tell that I was only half intent on what I was doing, for my thoughts drifted further down the revision path.  I realised that, if I were to be more economical and say 'Now let us order these things.', it would convey a totally different meaning, i.e. to requisition goods from an outside source, rather than to arrange things - in this case ideas - already in my possession.

That was all to do with the sequence of the same known words.  It's perhaps coincidence that all these thoughts came in the space of about two hours earlier today.  During my early morning prayers, my mind drifted to a line from a hymn, written only in the nineteenth century by John Bacchus Dykes, but using words common a couple of centuries earlier.  I'd sung it often when I was younger, without giving it a second thought, but today's child might be puzzled by the archaic tenses of "Which wert and art and evermore shalt be."

It's time to draw this 'socially distanced' ramble through the textbooks to a close, before I drift off to Norman-French, Anglo-Saxon and Greek.  But let me just explain those three unusual words in that hymn line.  The 'which' at the beginning is a personal reference to God, to whom the whole hymn is presumed to be addressed; until the seventeenth century - and possibly later - it was common to differentiate between singular and plural in the second person.  This is still the case in many languages (French, German and Welsh, to my knowledge) but English became lazy and now uses 'you', 'your', and 'yours' whether we're talking to one or a hundred people.  The words in this hymn are the archaic forms of 'were', 'are' and 'shall' that would have been used with 'thou', the single word for the second person, that has long since fallen out of use.

The moral of my early morning is therefore not just to be careful what you say, but also the order in which you say it ... and how you spell it as well!

They're Fantastic!

I often moan that, in this well-structured, retired life of mine, there is little of excitement to write about in these weekly jottings.  This cannot be said of the past few days, however.  I woke up on Tuesday morning feeling quite chipper.  I'd beaten the alarm by a couple of minutes, which was useful since I knew I had to clear away the washing that had been drying overnight, before I could begin my normal morning routines.

I was at work on time or a minute or two early, and quickly established what had been left for me by my friend who does the Monday shift.  The working day began well until, a little more than hour in, I walked over to guide a new colleague through a task he hadn't done before.  As I peered over his shoulder I was aware that I couldn't see his computer screen clearly.  My first thought was simply that this was due to the fact that I'd removed my specs when I put my mask on (I still haven't found a way of coping with the combination of beard, mask and specs without misting up).  But, almost immediately, I realised that, in addition to that anticipated problem, I was seeing two misaligned images of what I was looking at.

I went and sat down again and asked someone to get me a drink of water: past experiences of 'dazzled vision' had told me that a drink and closing of the eyes for a few minutes would clear the problem.  This time, though, the symptoms were much stronger and a mere drink was too little, too late.  Before long, although safely seated, I began to feel dizzy, the room was swimming before my eyes and I started retching.  Considerate co-workers quickly took control as, stage by embarrassing stage, my breakfast was transferred to a strategically placed and lined waste bin.  I heard instructions being issued: have you got gloves on? go and get an apron! no, don't call him, his partner is shielding!  My young colleague efficiently closed down the computers and, after being assured that there was nothing more he could do, left for home.  Someone called for an ambulance, and someone else gently wiped my beard ... time after time!

Before long, the paramedics arrived and took control.  A canula was inserted in my forearm.  There were all sorts of questions, to which I knew the answers, but couldn't provide them for the muscular effort of being sick.  Eventually things calmed down; I was transferred to the ambulance and dozed under the influence of a quick-acting anti-vomit drug and against the background of the rattling of the vehicle as it sped to the local hospital.  By the time we were parked outside A&E awaiting a cubicle within, I was feeling quite a bit better.

Once control had been handed over to hospital staff and the paramedics had left for their next call, I found myself in a cubicle with glazed doors that gave me a near perfect view of the nursing station.  I could see for myself the efficient operation of the department.  Nurses came and went, each one carefully and conscientiously announcing her name and what she was going to do to or for me.  Blood samples were taken, and an ECG trace obtained, and temperature and blood pressure noted regularly.  Finally, I was attended - with the same courtesies - by the doctor, American by voice but oriental in appearance.  She was swift and thorough in what she had gleaned from all the data collected.  She announced that I would be given fluids and, in answer to my request to use a toilet, directed me to 'the bathroom, right over there!'

By now, it was mid-afternoon.  I had a drip feeding into my arm and alternated my interest between the ongoing operations beyond the glass and the sudoku I was playing on my mobile phone.  Every now and then one or other nurse would catch my eye as she passed by to the cubicles on either side, and most exchanged a smile.  About the point when the half-litre of fluid I was being given had finished, the doctor returned.  After applying all the standard checks to make sure that I hadn't suffered a stroke, she explained that my unfortunate experience had been caused, in her opinion, by a combination of dehydration (I hadn't been drinking sufficiently on a daily basis for quite some while) and a slow heart rate which, in some ways is not a bad thing, but in other ways causes problems, such as in this instance, when it doesn't get enough of what fluid is there around the body so effectively as is required.

All that remained was to be taken to the 'discharge lounge' (sounds like an airport, I know, but it wasn't so luxurious!) to await transport home.  After an early night, the next day I felt virtually normal, and yesterday morning I was back at work as usual, and with the unexpected delight of having a new volunteer to train, hopefully to fill the remaining slot in our present schedule.  Medically, I've changed and enhanced my drinking habits, and am in contact with my GP to investigate further the overall problems of circulation and heartbeat.

Don't listen to anyone who dares to deride any aspect of our NHS - from personal experience, now, I can say ... "THEY'RE FANTASTIC!"

Older and Wiser

"Jehoram rested with his fathers ..." - 2 Kings 8:24

It's unusual for me to begin with a quotation, but this one, which crossed my reading 'path' this week, seemed fitting for some of the thoughts I was going to share.  Let me say at the outset, though, that my mortal coil is still vibrating strongly and I have no intention of shuffling off it for the time being.  However, the older I get, the concept of 'resting with my fathers' takes a more positive place in my experience.

For one thing, I find that passing into or through years that correspond to my parents' ages as I was growing into adulthood has helped me appreciate some of the pressures and concerns that they may have been going through - either individually or together - but which they may have either seen no point in, or had realised it would be impossible to, share with me at the time.  The prime example is coming to terms with children who are far more concerned with their own lives than having anything to do with their parents!

Naturally, I cannot imagine what either of my parents was like in their younger years vis-a-vis their own parents.  However, given that the general pattern of life has arguably changed more between the 1970s and the end of the twentieth century than probably any comparable period in our history, I suspect that my grandparents' experience of children growing up would have been vastly different to that of my parents or myself.

Another contributory factor to this ageing topic has been my dream life.  Many have been the mornings when I've surfaced into the real world with a lingering memory of a dream that included strange incomplete, yet identifiable, characters from a varied selection of my past experiences: different workplaces miles apart in distance or time; my present friends associating with me in the house where I grew up, and so on.  It's as if my relaxing mind has flicked through the library of my memory, plucking a page from here and a page from there, and stitching them together in random sequence into a temporary collage for my nocturnal delectation.

And the obvious extension to this line of thought is my fascination with family history and the habit I've found of putting together a story (even if not the real one!) that fits behind some of the family groups as I discover more about them and gather their true history census by census.  I see yet another decade's crop of new children, and wonder what a mother's life must have been like, and how long her body would cope with the strain.  The older ones grow up, perhaps moving to new surroundings near and far in search of work, making new acquaintances, starting families of their own.

Very rarely do I see someone's occupation labelled 'unemployed'.  Unlike today, it seems there was always something to turn to in order to make a living of some kind in the absence of a welfare state.  I do wonder sometimes just what some of the jobs actually involved ... given the one- or two-word descriptions on the census returns.  

One of my on-line friends, a professional genealogist, recently posted a section of a census page, illustrating the way that some industries had - perhaps still have - their own language: terms that meant something specific to them, totally different from what we might understand, albeit the words might be the same.  I this case it was the weaving trade, where a brother and sister were described as a 'scrutcher' and a 'cheeser'.  Fortunately the post was accompanied by a link to a glossary of weaving terms, so I was able to translate.  

I have a few weavers in my own database, mainly ancestors of my cousin's husband, whose tree I explored for a golden wedding presentation a few years ago, and I'm now minded to retrace some of those steps and see what peculiarities I can illuminate from this resource.

A Numerical Adventure

It's been one of those weeks ... Everyday life continues to flow according to a comfortable structure.  Work has changed from full days to half days because of the latest lockdown, but it's just as satisfying and involves getting up with the alarm on the same two days.  On the news front there's nothing spectacular happening either.  Covid is still killing hundreds every day - though I know that's certainly spectacular in a very sad way for those who've lost loved ones - and even Biden winning the presidential election isn't news any longer.

One piece of good news yesterday was the picture of a bespectacled northern gentleman walking out of 10 Downing Street.  I say 'gentleman' in its broadest possible sense, of course.  His cold and sinister appearance, along with the reputation that goes with it, betrays the warmth and welcome of all the northerners I know.

But, blog-wise, this tranquillity provides me with a lack of substance and, as is so often the case, I turn to the family history for inspiration.  I wrote the other week of my current major projects, each in its way a correction of earlier oversight, and the way that my attention to these had been distracted by the discovery of a whole branch of my family tree where records I had received from distant cousins had remained un-checked and undocumented for many - too many! - years.  This distraction has grown legs!

Digging up records, whether on line or at the record office, is far more attractive than entering administrative cross-references, and I decided that I would take each person in this branch and trace them, so far as I could, from birth to death through all the available censuses.  According to a book I got a few years ago, this is a process known as 'family reconstruction' and, ever since I discovered that the 1911 census carries the details of every married woman's children: how many she had borne and how many were still living at the time of the census, it's something that I've tended to do for the majority of my 'new discoveries'.

This particular family is the one that embraces my 'ancestor no. 27'.  This reference is derived from a system that will be known to those of my readers who have dabbled in family history themselves.  It's known as an Ahnentafel number.  The name is derived from German and means 'ancestor table'.  In this system, I am no. 1, my parents are nos. 2 and 3, my grandparents 4,5,6 and 7, and so on, with the father of each individual being given a number that is twice his or hers, and the mother that number plus one.  If you run this sequence up two more generations, you will find that no. 27 is the mother of my mother's paternal grandmother or, in other words, one of my eight great-great-grandmothers, by name Eliza Burlingham (or Bullingham ... some members of the family used one name, some the other).

The family I'm working through therefore comprises all of her brothers and sisters, their respective wives and husbands, ... their children ... and their spouses and grandchildren.  So far, since the middle of October, I've added to my database 31 individuals of whom I had no knowledge before, and who were born between 1830 and 1911.  The greatest surprise came after I'd entered the husband of Sarah, one of Eliza's elder sisters, and discovered that they had two daughters.  When I made to enter the name of the first to my database, I found that she was there already ... along with her own husband, eight children, three grand-children and a great-grandson with whom I've been exchanging Christmas greetings for many years!  That daughter had married her cousin, who happened to be Eliza's son.  Having discovered the son's marriage some while ago, I'd never explored his wife's family.

I'm fascinated by the way that, although in a comparatively small area of the country, there are links between different branches of my tree, albeit not often so closely linked as this.  This is the twenty-first time one person has claimed two places in my researches and I can't help wondering how many more I shall find!