The Wanderer Returns

I have just returned from a week away in Scotland and whilst enjoying myself in the capital city Edinburgh I couldn’t help wondering about the Scottish connections in my family tree.

Edinburgh, Scotland from Arthur's Seat

My 3x great-grandfather Thomas KINGHORN was born in Scotland or at least he seems to have been. His father (and presumably his mother) was living in Moffat at the time of his birth, although his baptism took place in Carlisle, south of the border.

I find it hard to see this situation as a rightful claim to Scottish ancestry, rather that he was probably born to English parents who happened to be living in Scotland at the time, although this wasn’t just a one-off, because Thomas had five brothers and sisters all born and baptised in the same circumstances.

At the moment I don’t have any good evidence about where Thomas’ parents came from, but my best guess would have to be south of the border, due to a lack of evidence on the Scotlands People website.

It seems likely to me that a few generations back I will find definite Scottish roots. The surname KINGHORN sounds particularly Scottish to me, probably connected to the town of Kinghorn in Fife. Of course it is dangerous to leap to such conclusions, the only way to be certain is to work backwards in the traditional manner, another project to look forward to when time and money permit.

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Where do I go from here? – Time for some reflection

I have been doing some family history over the last couple of weeks, but not a great deal and not with any real focus. As seems so often the case I am spending more time thinking about family history than actually doing any family history. Once again I have been trying to decide what I want to do next.

Time and motivation are still big issues in my life. I am reluctant to take on new projects that are going to take a lot of time or require a visit to a record office, because I know it is not going to get completed. I am just going to be left with another unfinished project and another bunch of new entries on my to-do list.

I think it is time for me to step back and look objectively at what I want to actually achieve with my research, and what I can realistically expect to achieve. Are my expectations too high? Am I trying to achieve too much? On one hand I want to push my tree back as far as I can, but on the other hand I also want to understand the lives of some of my closer ancestors (grandparents and great-grandparents) better.

One problem is that I think I am getting overwhelmed by the sheer size of my family tree, not that it is that big at the moment, still under a couple of thousand, but I know that I can never know everything about all of these individuals, no matter how long I live. All I need to do is accept this fact and focus on the ones I do want to know about.

For now though I think I am going to concentrate on some housekeeping, tidying up some loose ends and filling in a few gaps. There are many new collections online now that I haven’t really exploited fully and many documents/images that I haven’t extracted every last detail from.

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Wordless Wednesday: Chalk Stone Trail, Cocking Hill, West Sussex

Chalk Stone Trail, Cocking Hill, West Sussex (1st October 2011)

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Finding Frank: who lived at 2 Oxford Place, Brighton, Sussex?

One of the few pieces of information I was able to gather about the Frank TROWER whose name is recorded on the Brighton War Memorial was that Frank was the brother of J TROWER of 2 Oxford Place, Brighton.

Apart from his age and date of death this is the only other piece of genealogical evidence that I have to try place Frank within my family tree, but frustratingly I have been unable to tie the address to any of the TROWER family.

Last Saturday I made a quick visit to Brighton History Centre and tried to get some more information on who was living at 2 Oxford Place. Every piece of evidence I looked at points to the residents being the BROWN family without a trace of TROWER anywhere.

I had previously found the BROWNs living at 2 Oxford Place in the 1911 census, with a widowed Jane as the head of the household living with daughter Annie and sons Percy and Albert Ernest.

The Brighton directories I checked covering the period just before the First World War through to the end of the First World War all gave Miss A Brown as living there, as did the 1918 Voters List. Not a TROWER in sight.

I know directories are notoriously inaccurate but the consistency across all the sources suggests that it was the BROWN family that were resident at 2 Oxford Place and not the TROWERs. I suspect that the evidence from the CWGC website is correct, J TROWER did live there, but only as a lodger and as such make it into any of the records.

There is a possibility the there was a family connection between the BROWNs and the TROWERs. Jane is almost certainly too old to be the sister of Frank, even if she had started out as a TROWER.

There are of course other records that might give an address for J TROWER regardless of whether he was a property owner or lodger. A marriage certificate or perhaps the birth or baptism record for a child should give a specific address. This would be costly and I wouldn’t know where to start, assuming that the J TROWER at 2 Oxford Place did in fact get married and have children.

Of course there could be an employment record somewhere. Perhaps he worked for the Post Office or the railway, or maybe a military service record somewhere that would have an address, but that really would be searching for a needle in a haystack, if not in a field full of haystacks.

Remembering Ernest Arthur TROWER (1895-1917)

Sunday July 24 [1927] Today was unveiled the Menin Memorial Gate at Ypres. ‘To those whose graves are unknown’ Unknown or rather graveless, those blown to fragments during these ghastly years as you my brother was. How well I remember your last words to me when I saw you for the last time. And how did you die? how can I ever know. Were you mercifully killed or were you wounded & died slowly. Died slowly in a strange country amongst strange people & knowing all the time that you would never see your loved ones again. Oh my poor brother what an ending to your life, hard for you, hard for us what hardship of mind & body must you not have endured in France & no doubt you often thought of the time when these years of anguish would end & that you could return to us again.

I recall again in memory all the days of our childhood, when we were boys & companions together. The only real companion I have had in my lonely life we had no secrets from each other. How straightforward & courageous you were too my dear Ern.

But never, never again can you & I meet. In memory only can I see you. Our days of boy-hood are long past now and you, my boy-hoods companion are dust in Flanders whilst I have gone much further in my journey & these days seem long, long ago now, but whilst life is in my body I can never forget you, even if I may have found someone who may be a dearer companion than ever you were.

These worlds were written by my 2x great-uncle Percy Ebenezer TROWER about his older brother Ernest Arthur TROWER who lost his life during the First World War. Whilst I have no memories of Ernest, only facts and pictures, I feel privileged to be able to honour the life and sacrifice of Ernest this Remembrance Day.

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.