1921 Census Day, new records released, as revealed at midnight. In a few locations in England one can view this freely, but I am in France. Therefore I would have to pay. At first I was not going to look, as it wasn't that I expected to find any vital information there. Rather I messaged my London based daughter, Eleanor, to let me know if she visits Kew Gardens, as this was one of the locations of free access (in and around the Kew Archives). But as a keen genealogist I couldn't then resist to at least have a little look, firstly just at my Welsh family (simply by transcript), then I saw that for just a little extra money one can download the originals and in my excitement ended up doing this for everyone. So the Welsh Harrisons of Varteg were the first I looked at. I already knew their ages, places of birth and occupations. What I did learn was which colliery they worked at. It was on the Varteg Hill that my great grandfather, John Harrison, worked as a colliery examiner for John Vipond & Co. My pop, his son George, was at that time a 12 year old boy. Ok, secondly I looked at my Maxted's of Eastleigh, to the family of my great great grandfather, William Maxted, who was a boilermaker on the railways. His Irish wife, Maria, who had always been a mystery, having previously said she was from Westmeath, now claimed in this 1921 census to have been born in Cork. So, yes, armed with his new information I looked once more to finding something of her origins, but still found nothing. What I did find from this census, which I had not known before, was that one of the daughters, Norah, herself had at this time an illegitimate baby in the family home, a little girl named Norah Maria Kathleen, the names of both her mother and grandmother. As for William and Maria Maxted's daughter, Florence, she had married a ships cook, Percy Spencer, and was living with him at 2 Bridge Cottages, Dovercourt, with my little 'nanny' Eileen, aged three years. Florence's younger brother, Henry, was also living with them and working as a local postman. My Shetland Inkster's I couldn't look ar as no Scottish records had been as yet released. I now looked at my Seagrove's of Greenwich. I already knew that my great great grandfather, Thomas Seagrove, was a salvage hand (retired) for the Port of London. And I looked at the Bane's . My great great grandfather, Richard Bane, was newly a widower, aged 81, living with his daughter Alma's family in Walthamstow, Alma's husband, George Reynolds, being a school teacher. All of this I knew. What was new information was Alma's birth in Barbados having been fine tuned to the location of St Anne's, where there had been a British garrison. So this was where my Bane's had lived while they were in Barbados. My 'granny' Isabelle Bane can be seen aged three living with her family at 13 Lee Road in Dovercourt. I'd not so easily found them at first, due to her father, D'Auvergne Bane, using his middle name only of Robert. I already knew that he'd worked as a checker at Parkeston Quay. In the census it specified that he worked for the Great Eastern Railway. That was it for my family in the 1921 census, nothing excessively riveting. But little by little colours are added to the family story.
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There was another death in the family. It was the last of my Great Welsh Aunties, Aunty May. She was 82 and had turned senile these last two weeks. She smoked a lot and my mum reckoned empysema had killed her. So it was that I went to my Great Aunt May's funeral in Wales at the Victoria Village Methodist church near the viaduct in Garndiffaith. There I joined my mum, cousin Melissa, and Nan and Pop. The service was short and unremarkable. I could hardly tune into any of the words. And yet there was such a wonderful vive in the church, like it was a really wonderful place, so timeless and peaceful. My baby Eleanor made a few little squeaks and such like, but nothing major. Great Uncle John Harrison told me his new daughter Aimée, only two months older than Eleanor, was remarkably similar to Eleanor. My Eleanor was looking ultra gorgeous in her pretty girlie dress with pink tights. She was a beautiful gentle person. Her eyes reflected a magic from the distant past when women were priestesses. I had brought her forth to honour the ancient matriarchal line of which I also was a part, a sacred unbroken line of descent to Eleanor. Both she and Jai reflected different parts of my family tree. My son Jai was of the Dovercourt fair-haired brigade, as were my cousins Julie, Danny and Steve. Whereas Eleanor was truly Welsh, a Celtic princess. As was not my Welsh Great Uncle John saying that she was identical to his daughter Aimée in both looks and expressions. And yet the magic invested in Eleanor by her matriarchal line was of Ireland, which was verified so far by the family tree research I had so far compiled. We drove onwards to a cemetery, I knew not where, which was large and full, for which there was a traffic jam getting into the place. Standing in the rain under brolly's we watched the coffin being lowered down into May's husbands grave. Then we were all off to the family gathering at the Hotel Commodore in Cwmbran. It was lovely to meet so many of the Welsh relatives. I'd brought my Welsh family tree file along for people to browse through. It appeared I was not the only one to have been tracing our Welsh ancestry. One other doing it was David, known as Dai, who was a headmaster in Cumbria, but was now accepting a post to work for four years at the Missionary School in Pokhara in Nepal. Jai made 'tickets' from bits of paper and managed to sell them for 50p each to a couple of the relatives. We were invited to stay with one relative, Ann, whose husband performed magic tricks for Jai. He had a superbly eloquent Welsh accent. Oh how I loved the Welsh accent. I was so happy to have Welsh roots and to be a part of this Welsh family, despite my so English way of talking.
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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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