Discovering My Roots

When I was maybe 10 or 11, and both my brother and sister were away at school, my mother's Parkinson's  disease was severe enough to have convinced her to receive the experimental brain surgery being offered in Edinburgh as the future in cures for the disease. Each surgery relieved the worst of her symptoms, but only temporarily. Because she was so severely affected by the disease, if I ever suffered more than a head cold I would be shipped off to my grandparents.

I loved the times I spent in Whyteleafe, where you could walk down the hill and pick up a train to take you to Croydon or into central London; where my aunt had an aviary of canaries and my grandpa tended his garden and greenhouse. He must have been able to see much better then than he could in later life, by which time he had only shadowy peripheral vision.

Granny died a lot younger than grandpa and consequently my attachment was greater to grandpa and to the aunt who had stayed at home with my grandparents and cared for them as they grew older.

My aunt took me to my first pantomime at the Palladium in London and although I don't remember it well, I know I was star struck!

When I became a member of Ancestry.com it was with the intention of finding out more about my mother's side of the family as my brother had already unearthed information about that of my father, using a British site. Because memories have faded and there are few people left to answer questions the task of tracing a family tree is not easy. Ancestry.com has a British site but the archives are not nearly as well developed as they are for the U.S. When I think I have found something helpful I am hampered by not knowing enough even of the history of my grandparents.

I am hoping that a cousin back in the UK will do better and share her findings with me. She grew up much closer to my grandparents in terms of distance and may have spent more time with them.

Although the first (christian) names of my grandparents' generation are somewhat different to ones in vogue subsequently, the family name is not unusual enough to make it stand out in a search.

I remember meeting cousins, but I don't remember their names. Oddly, what I do remember is a white casement window with crystallized flowers spread there to dry....or was that in Worcester and cousins of my father's family?! It is frustrating that I cannot remember clearly and that I am only now interested in my roots. If only I had wanted to discover them when there were family members who knew the answers!