Diwali, Samhain, Halloween, All Saints. I sit by my yellow flowers for the dead, as a cold wind blows up, and I get back into the world of genealogy. I've found newspaper reports about Anna's millionairess great grandmother, Madame Midas, from her discovery of gold nuggets, to the Ladies Kennel Club. I also found reports for Liz's Starkey ancestors, who were followers of Lord Prince in the Abode of Love, a notorious Somerset cult group 'The Princites'. All I found for both my friends was compelling to read. AuthorAuthor Susie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees.
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![]() Finding some time to do research, I look to improving old friends trees, starting with Judith's, finding out that mystery of who is her half-brother. I found the very newspaper article by which her dad was forced by law to support the baby son of a lady in his village of Roade. He denied this child, of an Eileen, was his, but four hours of investigation and many witnesses went against him. With the child's name unmentioned in the article, I found him by looking up Eileen's surname to match a child of that time. There he was, a Stephen. And I informed Judith of this, but it so turned out that she had eventually, anyway, talked of this with her father, and indeed the boy was called Stephen, but still Judith's father told Judith he had never even done anything by which this lady could have become pregnant. This is the kind of thing, ultimately, that can only be cleared up with DNA tests. But Judith does trust her fathers word. She says Eileen targeted him for support because he was from a well to do family. His grandfather, Charles Frederick Alsop, was in the paper tonnes of times, his law firm having supported Judith's dad in the case, chairman of this and president of that, again of Roade in Northamptonshire. I don't see Judith's people in and out of the workhouse like mine. Not even a whisper of anything dubious, not anywhere, but for the illegitimate maybe, maybe not, child. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() The neanderthals are, not to be forgotten, also my ancestors. They were seriously inbred, which no doubt compromised their chances of survival long term, as a distinctly separate sub-species, their gene pool becoming too minimal for tackling efficiently new threats, like disease brought along by newcomer humans. Our vulnerability to allergies is thought to come from neanderthals, as also many strengths. Their last known home was in a cave on the seashore of Gibraltar. More and more we find other humanoids roamed the earth, and again some breeding with us. Only through us, by merging some genes with us, have they in a way survived. Denisovans are now well know of, mixed into eastern Asians. Especially they enabled Tibetans, by past relations, to thrive so well at such high altitudes. In Indonesia there were mini peoples, dwarf humanoids. Back in Africa, was yet another type of ancient people, discovered not by any remains but by DNA. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I was up so late with my genealogy work. The file is close to completion, temporary completion that is, as the subject goes on and on and on. There are then other branches of the tree to make files of, but this poorer London side has fascinated me lately. I even cry, because our family often suffered so much. I'd never known before what was Hannah Bunney's destiny, her life already being so full, first in London, then Greenwich, three husbands that died on her, and her career nursing at the Greenwich Hospital. But now I have found her in later life, at the Bethnal Green workhouse, and living in one of London's lowest slums, the Old Nichol Street Rookery. After 11 years of living in the Rookery slum a removal order was made, and Hannah was next seen at the Southwark workhouse, in her 70's, and there she died. Poverty and the workhouse is a big theme for my London ancestors. Life was so tough then, hard survival. How can I not weep for all they went through. File Project Ancestral Paupers completed. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() Wow, what a breakthrough, as for my ancestor Philip Barton, I discover he was at the Battle of Trafalgar. There was a minimal reference only, but still there it was, P... (indecipherable) Barton, of the right age, 29, and of the right place, London, and his station, ordinary seaman. Clicking for more detail the link was dead. Still, this is momentous for me. The Battle of Trafalgar is ever famous and every brave Brit there was a hero, victorious against a bigger force ie. the French and Spanish, by which we established our superiority at sea, what to speak of protecting our land from invasion for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars. And there Lord Nelson had perished. All so very famous. And Philip was there. I worked more on understanding the lives of my Barton ancestors, who were of St Ann Blackfriars, there where they were buried, even though the church had already burnt down in the Great Fire of London, never to be rebuilt. There is always more to discover, the never ending research. On reading of the Battle of Trafalgar I was in tears. It brought up such strong emotions. He was there, surely he was, I feel it. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I have another genealogical breakthrough, hurray, this being finding out why my ancestor, John William Harrison, was put in prison for half a year back in 1871. Oh, how so long to find this. But there it was. Being a waterman/bargeman John had crossed the Thames from Greenwich to the Isle of Dogs, whereon he began loading his barge with iron from the Samuda wharf at Blackwall. Half a ton he got into his barge when he was spotted by a man who he then set to wrestling with. As it is said, he tried to throw the fellow in the water and would have succeeded if not for another person spotting the fracas. He was given six months hard labour in prison, hence his daughter, my great great grandmother Maria, having to go into the workhouse at the age of 11, her mother already having died from tuberculosis. And for Maria's deceased mother, Eleanor Caroline Barton, who'd been raised in an orphanage, I found newspaper clips about the Sailors Female Orphan Home where she grew up, of her singing along with the other girls for the public 'Oh Where is the Guide of my Infant Years'. Even back then, when Eleanor was 7, it was reported that one of the other girls of the orphanage had died of consumption (tuberculosis). I researched more, looking at where in London my people lived and what those areas were like. When my ancestors lived at Cock Lane, beside St Sepulchre church, I do think that unlike now this was a colourful and stimulating place to be. St 'Pulchre, as it was known, was right by a prison, the Old Bailey, and the cells of those condemned to die. It was inseparable from those surrounds, tolling the bells and praying for the souls of all those condemned ones who would stop there on the way to the gallows, having a gift of flowers presented to them. But a walk away from there were other homes for my family, in more notorious areas, Field Lane with its plethora of resold stolen handkerchiefs, Plum Tree Court which was an escape route for thieves, and its neighbouring Shoe Lane, being by St Andrews Church, where priests needed bodyguards for this being such a rough place. My ancestress Sarah Bunney died in the workhouse just by there, though of a good old age. She was a survivor, and her daughter Hannah Bunney had by now long gone to Greenwich. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I listened to two radio talks, a link sent by Martin Lowe, in which David Attenborough investigates the theory of the aquatic ape. It did make so much sense, that some millions of years ago, we were evolving along water shores, with great water skills, rather than running around in the Savannah slaughtering animals. Of course, at some point, we have tried killing and eating everything, but for a greater length of time we were more laid back, being on seashores, at estuaries, lakes and riverbanks. Not only is it seen that humans did indeed extend primarily along coast lines and great rivers, but there are certain evolutionary clues, one quite startling, being the surfers ear, a small bone that develops in the ears of those who spend much time in water. Sure enough, looking back at ancient remains, this ear bone is found in skeletal remains. There is free diving, in which the physiology of the body entirely adapts to the underwater experience. My young son George naturally swims this way. The iodine and other requirements for a large brain to develop are found in sea diets, seaweeds and all. Since man has forsaken sea foods for land animals his brain has become smaller. Humans long ate catfish, shellfish, water reeds, lilies, even lily popcorn, and seaweeds, and their streamlined, upright bodies suited water wading. To be a fast animal hunter it is more efficient to run on four legs. Humans have also loved the fruits of the trees, hence their sweet appetite, and why they have never totally submerged into the seas like seals and dolphins. There are still Korean and Japanese old ladies who swim underwater and dive every day; up until the age of 75 their bodies do this with ease. Meanwhile, those trying to land survive have had short lives racked with ailments. There are other clues as to this better and more natural way of humanity, subcutaneous fat in the body, vernix on babies and the way they naturally swim in water when born. Humans did like to travel and never stayed in once place. They have also thrived so well up in the high mountains, which I imagine as having been places of pilgrimage, to convene with heavenly divinities. The greater floods, once they came, would have led to resorting to higher lands. My Caucasian people may not have crossed deserts after all then, instead following shorelines, along the Mediterranean, around the Black Sea, exploring the mountains, and down to the Caspian Sea. We truly were mermaids of a kind, that which friend Nancy has said of me and my friends, that we are mermaids. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I researched more for my project, writing out a piece on my Irish ancestors and the problem of drinking. It's very interesting really. Even in the google entry on the potato famine, which is quite extensive, no mention is made of the drinking habit and what this may have contributed to the plight of the peasants. Nor ever was there any discussion of terrorism prior to the famine. Evicted families were en masse given free travel to the America's, which is how more immigrants ended up there than anywhere else. A quarter of Liverpool was very quickly Irish. The amount that came, like my ancestors, to Greenwich in London, was quite small in relation to other areas. I have Irish on both my mothers and fathers sides, my fathers red hair being a combination of Irish and Forest of Dean. As for great granny Mary Ann Seagrove, her features with high cheekbones I can see was quite a feature of her ancestral Kerry people. Personally, I never inherited an inclination to addiction, thankfully, though have done my share at a few times in my life of binge drinking. It's not the life I want though. The Irish expats I know, their problem with alcohol comes from so deep a place, hence they are very much victims to their own biology. My Sugrue's were maybe quite similar to them. When I look back to early Irish history I see they originally drank home brewed beers, made from barley and called 'courmi'. The wealthier Irish imported wines from Poitou. Then there was pleasurable mead, made from honey. The first recorded encounter with the hard stuff, whiskey, in the Irish Annals, was only as far back as the 15th century, when the chief MacRannal died from drinking too much of it. Maybe, then, it was simply the introduction of whiskey that was their downfall. The fire water. It is said of distilled alcohol that the 11th century created it, the 17th century consolidated it, and the 18th century popularised it. By the 1690's there was a 'gin epidemic' in England and parliament took steps to lessen its consumption, being all too concerned with the negative consequences of its use. Reading about the history of humanity and alcohol, at first alcohol was positively viewed as an elixir of the gods, and only later with awareness of the more negative aspects was it seen as a dangerous poison. The key has always been to relate to alcohol with respect and moderation. As it is addictive, I guess this is not going to really be successful too often. Hence why Islam bans alcohol altogether, and yet contrarily says wine is what awaits those that make it to heaven. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() I brushed up on my Irish-Greenwich matriarchal project file, happily absorbed in what I do, writing, researching, making collage, cutting and gluing; 'my school work' as I call it. A Passion for Genealogy - The Research of Susie Harrison. The london-Irish Ancestry part of my grandmother Isabelle Bane's family tree. I made a Kerry Irish collage and looked more at the story of the famine that my ancestors just had to escape. Accounts I find do have a certain watered down perspective of oppressor versus oppressed, but I feel there are two more considerations, one being that historic times always had a certain ruthlessness and in-humanitarian influence, non-acceptable today and so all the more shocking to us; but also, there were vicious circles here at play, clouding the part of any supposed innocents, with the existence of heavy drinking and all its family, social and financial consequences. No more brutal on Roman Catholics were the overlords in Ireland, than had been so in Britain, where the old religion was purged completely. Naturally, stern divisions had come into being. But, also, the personal self-destruction of alcohol afforded little hope for the greater community to ever gain respect and credibility, whatever the root differences. It's easier to just blame and be angry and continue drinking. Local Roman Catholic landlords, not even Protestant, were as bad as any absentee Protestant aristocrat, the latter being out of touch with the real world on an earthy level, and so were maybe worse and more culpable. I did find a more honest account by an actual Irishman on the alcoholic problem the Irish have such a propensity for. I looked to find out more about this. I was curious. The history I'd so far found said that the Irish, before the potato famine, simply drank water, and elsewhere it was stated they had a soured yoghurty drink. There was no mention of alcohol. So I had put this in my file, thinking the drink problem the Irish were famed for thus arose in consequence of the horrors of the potato famine. And it takes an Irishman to be honest about it all and say such alcoholism and its destructive effects had long gone on. Potatoes were not only the sustenance of the peasants, but also their peril, as from it they distilled hard alcohol. This drink was home distilled 'poiton'. If one removes the t, and replaces but one letter, one gets 'poison'. Gallons of such Irish whiskey were made, every second cottage or so manufacturing it. They drank to their detriment. When one is poor, it does always amaze me, that important finance or nourishment gets put into alcohol, for which there is a neglect of children and or wives, although women drank hard too. With large families, plenty of unemployed single men were up to no good, the 'bachelor group' as they were called, defining their manhood with hard drinking and fighting. Communities even expected this of them and supported them in it. Evicted tenants formed early guerrilla groups, such as the White Boys, carrying out terrorist activities in the nights, fuelled by their plentiful consumption of poiton and aggressive bravado, targeting landlords and any others suspected to collude with the British colonials. And, yes, they were born into abominable conditions, as peasants were pretty much in any part of the world. They were exploited as tenants, or cottiers, at any moment to suffer eviction. Sufferings make a path to drink, so that even by this the imagery is fulfilled of a people who are vulgar and uncivilised. They chose panacea in something that would not give them that, which would make all even more dreadful. With the catastrophic appearance of the potato blight starvation and disease now preyed upon them. There had already been such precarious balance in their ways of life. The lumper potatoes yielded high, but didn't mature until the autumn. Though stored potatoes kept families going right up till the end of spring, the crop then became inedible, and so began what was known as the 'summer hunger'. Those who had a little wherewithal would buy from dealers oats and barley to see them through to potato harvesting time. Those from poorer families sought different solutions, their menfolk seeking temporary work in the fields of England, while their women and children stayed behind begging along the roadsides. I can't know precisely what my own Sugrue's and Sheehan's experienced in all these regards, but I see in their new life in Greenwich they were far from finding a utopia, bringing along their own habit to drink and to inadequately function as families. The British both let them down, by bad policy in Ireland, and welcomed them, both friend and foe. Not in any of the newspaper articles of their dramas was it ever mentioned that they were Irish immigrants. They could have assimilated better if not for chronic drunkenness. For this, Irish families had a long hard journey ahead of them. It is almost as if there has been a biological propensity to drink, regardless of circumstance. All the Irish expats I have met in France are atrocious alcoholics. Alcohol is no way but the sole path of the Irish, but as a report has shown, 54% of Irish admit to harmful or risky drinking, compared to a European average of 28%. The Irish blood is in many of us, which I know from all the genealogy I've done for friends. I have long been teetotal. I have always wondered at the Irish and their heavy drinking. It's so stereotypical that we are not really supposed to by fairness ever mention it. But maybe this story requires some honesty. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. ![]() In my genealogical research I looked at improving a friend Mary's tree and worked out that she was a second cousin to Bamber Gascoyne, the compere of University Challenge. I messaged her the discovery and she knew it anyway. They meet up a lot and their families are close. This is a grand ancestry, back to Crisp Gascoyne, mayor of London. And then there are the Munro's. Interestingly, Ian also has Monro's who had a mansion, Druids Stone, where really was located a druids stone. Wouldn't that be a hoot if Ian was not only a distant cousin of Jeremy's but of Mary too, as if Ian is somehow the keystone connecting us all, in ways we can barely imagine. What an amusing concept. I looked up any substance for this new connection, but records further back are too lacking. I had a good try at finding something. And Ian's tree is rather fascinating. His Munro's married more than once into Jamaican colonial families. So interesting are Ian and Mary's family histories. And how would you know this of Ian who has not a drop of grandeur in him. Here I am, pursuing my paupers in and out of the workhouse, while a bunch of others around me are of esquires and famous families. I've also looked more at Jeremy's 'Oliver Beckerlegge' of the United Free Methodist Church, taking care of peoples souls, and interestingly getting into trouble again and again for refusing to vaccinate his firstborn. Mary's family tried to keep slavery legal, strongly opposing its abolition. The slaves of Jamaica, whose labours fed Ian's family fortunes in the sugar trade, rebelled and even sacrificed one of their white captives. There is so much of interest, the deeper one looks. Mary's Munro's are most esteemed, her grandmother, Eva Munro, being the head of the entire clan of Munro's, which then passed down to Mary's uncle Patrick, who though a Gascoigne by his mothers marriage, kept his mothers maiden name in order to be rightful chief of the Munro's. Ian's Munro's have to fit in somewhere with that great tribe, but I can't work out how. Did not Mary have the most glorious genealogy of us all, and had she not hippied it all away for a rock star. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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