Ella May was so hoping I could find her a close Irish ancestor, through the man who had adopted her as a baby, who had the Irish surname of Quinn; but, as I did research there and then, there wasn't an authentic Irish birth in this male lineage until as far back as a great-great, this being John Quinn, a prison warden.
Not good enough for a get out of Brexit clause then. Much like my own Irish great-great, Mary Dolan of Westmeath; just a step too far.
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I got stuck into some new genealogy, having at market offered to do Tim R's genealogy; some one else had done it, he said; maybe I could find out more interesting stuff, I offered. He was mulling on that. So I was eagerly awaiting some detail to get started, but then realised I needed nothing by my skill, after all I knew he was from Beccles and his age, and with but this little amount of knowledge I easily zapped back along his ancestry tree just by myself. Half of T's family was from Beccles in Suffolk, and the other half, the Revells, were from Norwich. Ah, the city I myself had lived in as a child. It was in looking back more and more through the Norwich records that I found one Revell's job title to be 'turnkey of the castle'. Well, what was that? As I discovered, a turnkey was a jailor. T's ancestor was a jailor at the Norwich castle! Fascinating, his name being Robert Revell. One can wonder at people who choose such professions.
During Robert's time at the castle, one of the turnkeys there, no name being given, was accused of having used the cat-o-nine tails on some unruly girl prisoners, although later this was refuted. Later, Robert's name was in the papers for being a local hero, he and other men saving the lives of women and children caught up in a gunpowder explosion. I got into looking at the genealogy of Jeremy Corbyn, having to have some balance here, considering that I'd already researched Boris Johnson's family tree. The Corbyn's were in general quite well -to-do hard working philanthropists; teachers and traders. The Corbyn's were from Lowestoft in Suffolk, Ella May's Spurgeons who I'd researched being from there too; and I did feel it, that I was going to find something linking them, and indeed I did; one of The Spurgeon girls, Elizabeth, who was a sister to Ella's ancestress Sarah the single mother, was a servant to the Corbyns, to the family of George Corbyn, a tailor on the High Street. And Ella May, right at time I was researching this, was outside Downing Street, protesting with a rowdy bunch of young people, all mad at the new right era which even traditional labour voters had given their support to, shouting 'Boris Johnson, not our prime minister'. Jeremy Corbyn's family tree did at first appear to be insipid, and then I found scandal, there having been a controversial workhouse master, James Sargent, who even got one of the pauper ladies pregnant, having 'had her in the parlour'.
I was inspired to work on the genealogy of Boris Johnson, which I had begun at an earlier date and which it seemed now apt to elaborate on. In patriarchal descent Boris is a Turkish Kemal and not really a Johnson as such. Looking further back, his male line had sprung from the union of a Turkish villager and a Circassian slave. It was their son, Ali Kemal, who married a Swiss English girl, Winifred Brun. Ali's end was met when he was lynched and hung by a rowdy Turkish mob, some element to this being revenge for his outspokenness against the crime of the Armenian massacres, such perpetrators having now aligned to the revolutionary Kemalists. Ali had accused the Ittihadist chieftains for being authors of the massacre and had relentlessly demanded their prosecution and punishment. He called the Armenian massacre 'a crime before which the world shudders'. He was marked for plenty more than his stance on what had happened to the Armenians, being also a liberal pro-Britisher, outspoken journalist against nationalism, and friend of the last sultan. For a while he had been the countries interior minister. All was changing for Turkey at this time, departing an Ottoman multi ethnic past, which was a home to so many Greeks, Jews and Armenians, to becoming a land simply of Turks and Islam. A newspaper article in the Sphere at that time writes; 'Arrests have been made by the Kemalists of moderate Turks. The Kemalists have their black lists. On one Saturday evening, six men, civilians, entered the Circle D'Orient, the Diplomatic club in Constantinople, and asked for Ali Kemal, a former Turkish minister of the interior, who was later editor of the Peyam Sabah, the Morning News, and a well known Turkish journalist, who has consistently denounced the policy of the Kemalists in his articles and in his speech. He was not in the club at the time, but the six men waited for him in an alcove outside. At last he drove up, paid off his driver, and was about to enter the building when the men approached him. Pluckily he withdrew his revolver, only to find that each of the six had already drawn their arms on him. He was taken off in a motor car at once, and put into a boat on the Bosphorous. He was taken to Ismidt, half lynched by a crowd of fanatics, then hanged'. Elsewhere it is reported in more detail that Ali was lynched by a mob with sticks, stones and knives and then hung from a tree. An epitaph put across his chest read 'Artin Kemal', Artin being an Armenian name and a deliberate mocking of his standing up for these people. It was Ali's son, Osman Wilfred Kemal, born in England and there raised by his English granny, his mother having succumbed to puerperal fever after his birth, who adopted his grandmother Brun's maiden name Johnson, more appropriate for life in England: from Osman Wilfred Kemal to Wilfred Johnson; he being the grandfather of Boris, alias Alexander Boris De Pfeffle Johnson. Rather than Boris Kemal. 1911 Census for Wimbledon showing Osman Wilfred Kemal as a little boy living with his big sister Selma and Granny Brun: 18 Bernard Gardens Wilfred Kemal, age 1 and a half, born Bournemouth (English) Selma Kemal, sister, age 5, born Cairo, Egypt (English) Margaret Brun Johnson, grandmother, age 54, married for 30 years and had 4 children, 3 of whom have died, born East Witton, Yorkshire Florence Tanner, child nurse, age 30, born Ockham, Surrey Amy Tunny, domestic servant, age 30, born Southwark The De Pfeffle part to Boris's name reveals aristocratic ancestry, and further beyond that even royal ancestry, Osman Wilfred Kemal-Johnson having married Irene Williams, granddaughter of Baron and Baroness De Pfeffle who had lived in Versailles at the Pavilion du Barry. Irene's mother, Marie Louise de Pfeffle, would often compete as a teenager in lawn tennis and ping pong and here is one of many old newspaper references to the latter: 1902 Pall Mall Gazette "Ping pong, which broke out recently in Paris now claims many victims. The first tournament has been held by the tennis club and resulted in the lady championships falling to Mlles Yvonne and Marie Louise du Pfeffel. The ladies paper, Femina, which publishes their portraits, also gives an enthusiastic account fo the game for the benefit of those people who do not play it." Marie Louise married her English amour Stanley Fred Williams in Versailles: 1906 The Queen, The Ladies Newspaper "Fashionable Marriages" "A pretty wedding which took place at Versailles on January 21st (1906) was that of Mr Stanley Fred Williams, eldest son of Mr frederick G Williams, of Upper Norwood, to Mlle Marie Louise, daughter of Baron and Baroness de Pfeffel, Pavilion du Barry, Versailles. The Rev J W Browne, English chaplain of St Marks church, Versailles, performed the ceremony. The bride looked very charming in her gown of white crepe de chine with Irish point lace and a wreath of orange blossom. The reception was held at the Pavillion du Barry, and later the bride and bridgrom left for Beaulieu for their honeymoon, after which they will return to make their home in Shortlands, Kent." It was Baron de Pfeffle's mother Carolina who had royal blood, she being the illegitimate daughter of an actress Frederika Port and Prince Paul Von Wurttemburg. Boris's ethnic variety continues in his children, by his wife Marina, who are part Indian, their mother being half Punjabi Sikh.
Boris and Marina are separated, though married still, and he has taken up with a woman younger than him, having moved her into his prime ministerial residence. Boris's ancestry, as I interestingly now have seen, despite first appearances, is most colourful and not all traditionally British. In Montpellier, staying with my friend Francois, I got stuck into his genealogy, into his maternal lineage, he having had a Russian Bessarabian Jewish grandmother Anna Roitman, originally Shperberg. Her husband Felix alias Ephim Roitman was gassed in Auschwitz by the Nazi's. He was a lovely man, an artist, and Francois had some decorative paintings of his, flowers upon trays and on a lampstand. Felix's wife, Anna, and daughter Lucile escaped but 15 minutes before the Nazi's would have taken them away, warned by the concierge of their building, for which they took flight to free France, far from Paris. They took refuge in a monastery and there converted to Christianity. Anna's conversion was simply for survival, she and Felix having been athiests, whereas Lucile (Francois's mother) took the Christian experience deeply into her heart. In Bessarabia, modern Moldova, the family came from Kishinev where they were petit bourgeois. It took a while of detective work and some stamina, to then discover much upon the Shperberg line. Annas's parents had run a paint shop. Her father Bentsion appears to also have been a victim of the holocaust. His own father, Shimon, son of Avram, died in his 50's of a lung infection. A couple of days later I worked even more on Francois's genealogy. Up till now I'd looked only at his Bessarabian side, which did fascinate. Now I got to look at his French side, for which we visited his elderly father Pierre Joly who produced a whole grand tree of his ancestry which was from Burgundy, German Switzerland and the Jura. Besides I was able to inspire Pierre to talk of family stories. As a boy, Pierre had been so close to his Swiss granny Julia Joly née Kuhn, who eventually would die from asthma. She had previously worked as head chef for the nobility and one day there had arrived a handsome hussar, who on delivering a package of money to the countess was rewarded by being sent to the kitchen for a meal. It was on setting eyes upon this good looking man, Charles Felix Joly, that Julia fell in love. As she would later say 'The devil tempted me into loving this man'. Having taken her to her room and become pregnant they would marry and this she would regret, for she was from a good Swiss family and he was a poor 'good for nothing'. There was no work for him at his home in Burgundy, so Julia brought him to Switzerland so her family could find him work, only for his mother, Marie Claudine, to get furious and make such a fuss that they returned to France. He was her only son. His father had died when he was but 11 years of age. Even Pierre would say of his Hussar grandfather Charles Felix Joly, he was 'not a pleasant man and wasn't often at home.' Whereas Pierre loved his Swiss granny and even lived with her for some years when he was a small boy. Pierre's father Arthur Jean Auguste Joly was a miller, mechanic and mender of bikes. He was hard working and wasn't at home much either. He died from a heart attack, while in recovery from an appendicitis operation. Pierre's mother Aimée née Lamy was a discreet woman, always exhausted with her six children who she announced would bring her to her death for all their noise and naughtiness, and yet she would live a long life, as would Hussar Charles Felix Joly. Aimée's maiden name, Lamy, was as common a surname in the Jura as Smith was in England. Aimée's mother Leonie, Pierre would never know as she died before he was born, aged 55, from breast cancer. Louis 'Old man' Lamy, Aimée's father, was stately and pompous, with a little moustache. He had a machine factory, where Arthur Joly worked from the age of 12, and on there meeting Louis's daughter, Aimée, he'd fallen in love. When they wanted to marry, Louis said he would never accept his daughter marrying a worker, so they had to wait till they were of age, marrying against his will, for which Old Man Lamy was forbidden to come to their house (though he would when his son in law was at work and besides, Pierre often met him when returning from school and would sit on his knees chatting with him and liked him a lot). So there was the tale of a French Swiss family. Pierre himself was good looking and a ladies man. He met Lucile Roitman when they were both students at the Sorbonne. He was a village boy and she was a sophisticated Parisian and an adept organiser, for which he admired her. They were both religiously active in converting people to catholicism, both devout, although in later life Pierre became an athiest. Despite her Jewish origins, from a young age Lucille had loved Christianity, which she always remained true to. I'd heard the story from Francois and now heard of this from Pierre, that the parish vicar who had been hiding Lucille and her mother Anna from the Nazi's, whom Anna had worked for as his servant, converted Lucile when she was aged 11. I emotionally connect with the ancestors I research, and felt it deeply, the loss of their beloved kind Felix to the Nazi holocaust. When the concierge had warned Anna that Jews in the area were being rounded up, thus enabling their escape, Felix was in hospital getting a check up for a minor ailment and he was taken prisoner from there. All these French Jews were put in a camp near Paris called Drancy, whole families with their children being crowded in there and some famous Jews. Anna would send parcels of provisions for him. Even she'd recieve his dirty laundry, wash it and send it back clean. Felix occupied himself while there in doing portraits. There was ever hope in those days, illustrated in their letters to one another, which Francois showed me later; a hope that the war situation would reverse and they would be reunited. Their photographs I got to see, visions of a lovely family. But under SS Nazi dominion, they suddenely having taken over command of Drancy, wagons of inmates began to be sent far away to Auchwitz, most of the occupants to be gassed immediately on arrival. It breaks ones heart to read of this and that Felix was one of those sent to Auchwitz himself. He was part of convoy number 32, journeying in a convoy of 1,000 Jews to Auschwitz on September 14th 1942, 893 of them who were gassed at the end of their journey, dear Felix being one of them. Anna was a single mother now, considered to be a Christian. She would be quite well off ultimately, being compensated by the Germans for them having killed her husband. It was Francois who cleared Anna's Montpellier apartment when she died, selling her furniture and paintings. He never found any documents of hers or Felix's Bessarabian origins. As a genealogist this to me is tragic, the loss of such papers. Like, in regard to Felix, I can find nothing of his own Roitman ancestry, there being no birth record, or of his marriage to Anna, nothing; a complete standstill.
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AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Categories
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