In the new subject of epigenetics it is noted that our maternal grannies were the ones to create the eggs we ourselves came from, so which, as it is posited, the experiences of the granny closely tie in to who we ourselves become. This naturally interests me, and yes, I've borne my own spiritual genealogy ideas and contemplated already how we are impacted by the experiences of our ancestors. So this becomes more of a subject nowadays, gets discussed and becomes a scientific study; slowly, slowly. It is so that I am more like my granny Isabelle than my mother is, and that my mother is more like her granny, at least in some regards. My granny Isabelle was schizophrenic and never wished to leave her house, not once she developed an anxiety about the outside world. Although, this had not developed in her when she created my egg within my mother in the womb. At those times she was so very much in love with her dashing romantic Scottish husband. This was during war time, during which he sometimes had leave to be with her, and when not would write romantic letters and poems. We were first borns, me and my mother, not my granny Isabelle though, although her own mother was a first born, when experiences are fresher. My granny Isabell ended up so wounded by love, her dear Lyall leaving her for another woman. But, yes, when my egg was created their love was blooming, along with plenty of separation due to the war. My granny Isabelle's own granny, Maria Harrison, for sure had a tough childhood, seeing her mother die too young from tuberculosis, her father being in prison, and she herself in the workhouse. Those trauma's would have been passed to my granny Isabelle, and they ultimately broke her; whereas for all my own trauma's in life I have been a survivor. Still, I have some of the traits of my granny, which my mother cannot bear, the messy chaos for one, which itself was born out of Maria Harrison's very tragic and difficult life in London poverty. Anxiety too I had inherited, socially; nevertheless I could go out into the world, which my granny could not. We ourselves heal the past and adapt. My granny travelled with her imagination in books about other lands; I travelled in reality. It is in recognising the vestiges of genealogical trauma that I have come to accept more my own impracticality and messiness. Ancestrally, the lineage of my grandmotherly journeying, versus the grandmotherly journeying of my mother and daughters, always skipping a generation, does throw up in some ways an intense story of similar scenarios. My granny Isabelle and her granny Maria, both of whom my influence is from; well in regard to Maria there was a certain dynamic with her own daughter, Mary Ann Seagrove, who would be my mothers granny. Maria was the messy impractical one, getting into an awful muddle, and Mary Ann had to herself play a more adult role, working hard and with great practicality, to basically stop the authorities removing her younger siblings into the workhouse and casting Maria into prison, all for her laziness and inefficient ways. Those siblings, ran about barefoot and scruffy, but happy, with no bother for school, everyone free to be who they are. All was put onto Mary Ann to salvage this situation, her father being away at sea, she cleaning her brothers shoes daily, and going off young into the workplace with her hair in a bun to look older, trudging miles through snow back and forth. Maria's inactivity was surely for her own traumas, seeing her mother die before her very eyes and being put into the workhouse. Such energies, and I believe this for all the work I have done with research of the family, simply fits so neatly, having still some reckoning with us, so that all my family have been hard on me, as I represent Maria, and they are all Mary Ann, who herself was a fireball and full of resentment. In knowing all of this, can one not then understand that what happens now is not just to do with present day concerns, but is borrowed from the past. In all current dramas one should entertain that this has seeded from a real life scenario that has been most traumatic in our ancestry and which in some way gets replayed. And yes, I muddle through life often enough, but I am a survivor and I am happy. I often like to be alone, so others shall not trouble me and create needless drama. This was my granny Isabelle's way indeed, but she was crazy and I am not. We adapt; we find wiser perspectives. My own daughters are so reluctant themselves to be mothers, and it is they who carry the eggs I created, deeply connected to who I am. I so wish they will not end our matriarchal lineage. Like please, please, have babies; but all rests with them.
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I put photos of my granny Isabelle née Bane into the time travel app; oh wow, what a delight, what a diva, such marvellous photos of her; and then doing the avatars for her too. I was so thrilled by this.
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.
I discovered a free mobile ap which coloured in black and white photos, or at least puroprted to, but on most pictures made little effect. A few though had at least some potential which I then worked on myself.
That was fun. I could see that a certain dynamic was in my family ancestry from before I was born, my great Aunty Connie having engineered a kind of exclusion against my granny Isabelle and all for reasons of practicality for which it was considered kosher, for it was on account of Isabelle having had a breakdown that older sister Connie became a substitute mother to my own mum, Joey. In this surely Connie had gloried, as from childhood she had resented her prettier little sister. Connie proved herself useful, not only to the children but also to Isabelle's handsome Scottish husband, Lyall.
Great Aunty Connie was similiar to my own mother in some ways, and Connie was very much like her own mother, Mary Ann, who had come from a humble background in London. These were strong assertive women who were capable of much charm, and were eminently practical. Whereas, as my mother had pointed out, I was more like my granny Isabelle. As I saw it, Isabelle was a totally unapologetic individualist outside of the box, so I didn't mind at all the comparison. And Isabelle was rather like her beloved father D'Auvergne, who was a unique soul from a classier background, a lovely man, kind of lost from how life could have been, with so much unrealised potential, and having a silent kind of nobility. With my oldest son having asked if there is a way to show his girlfriend our family tree, I get back to working on my own new genealogy website. I try to make this beautiful designer style and to write of my ancestors in a creative literary way. Working more on my genealogy passion site, there's plenty to do. A small introduction about the researcher I did, and the beginning of my granny Isabelle Bane's life story, a sad one really, considering that she lost her mind. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. My friends Dale and Audrey had begun tracing their family trees, an idea seeded in them by occasional visits to their house of Mormon elders. Dale had sussed out he was from fishermen Topsoms in Devon. Looking in bookshops with them I got into reading a book myself about tracing the family tree. My lover, Andy, knew already that he was descended from George Washington and the Tolpuddle Martyrs. We all visited a Norwich graveyard so Dale could see his grandparents burial place. When my mum phoned she was telling me what she knew of the family history, of crofters from the Shetland island of Burra and of a London tailors son who ran off with the maid. Along with the Topsom's, I was off to London, arriving at St Catherine's house to delve into the past of our ancestors. This was not much help, as one only had access to the indexes and had to pay £5 for each of the certificates, along with correctly supplied information. Still I could suss out a bit, like that my nanny Eileen's parents had to get married, she having been born around the same time that they got married even!!! We looked through lots of books there till it was throwing out time. On visiting Harwich I visited my granny Isabelle and asker her lots of questions about herself and her parents for my family tree quest. At my parents some days later in Burnham Beeches my godparents Chris and Carol came to visit with Great Aunty Connie, my granny Isabelle's sister. Connie had a keen memory, so I questioned her all about her parents (my great grandparents) and their parents too, and got loads of useful information for my genealogy file. I spent the next morning writing up notes on the family history. Back in Dovercourt, I now grilled my nanny Eileen and pop George for information regarding their family trees. Somehow, through nan's partial reluctance, I got to feel her father was not really her father!!! But how to find out for sure!!! Back in London, Audrey and I spent another day in St Catherine's House, trying to suss out more about our family trees. Then we went to the Census House and I found the 1881 record of my great great grandparents house in Plumstead, Alma House as it was called, which told me that my ancestor Richard Bane had been born in Norfolk; how exciting, as it was in Norwich that I currently lived. Back in Norwich I visited the local studies department in the library to check out their genealogy stuff. They had the Mormon register from which I found out more about the Inksters in the Shetland Isles. Visiting my nanny again I got to look at old family photos and I took some to get copies of.
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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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