My grandad Archie never spoke to me about his family. It was his death, only six months after that of one of my grandmothers, that first sparked my curiosity about where I came from. After all, his surname is my middle name.
Archie was born in 1920 in central Glasgow, in a tenement. Nearly 40 years later members of the extended family were still in the same tenement when my mother visited Scotland as a child.
Archie had an elder half brother, Robert, and two younger half brothers who had the same father, John and Joseph. Sadly, we don't know who Archie's father was.
Among his effects was a scrap of paper bearing the the address in Rutherglen of 'Mr and Mrs Miller'. Apparently, grandad had once told my grandma that this referred to his uncle. We knew absolutely nothing more.
Research I undertook several years ago revealed that Archie's mother, Jeanie, was herself illegitimate, born in 1895 to widow Helen Scossa (born Helen Miller). Helen died in 1939 and so my grandad Archie would have known and lived with her until he left Scotland to fight in WW2.
Scossa is a very unusual surname (certainly not Scottish!) and so it was straightforward to find Helen's wedding to Arnold Scossa on New Year's Eve 1884. The location - Plymouth - was somewhat of a surprise, given that Helen's family didn't seem to have ventured outside of the Glasgow area for decades! Arnold was a waiter and so perhaps Helen was also involved in hospitality.
Helen was six months pregnant and the child was born back in Scotland at the end of March 1885. His name was Archimede Scossa - who was known as Archie Miller (and after whom my grandad Archie was named), the 'Mr A Miller' on the paper among my grandad's belongings.
In April 1895 Helen had a daughter - my great grandmother, Jeanie - whose father was John McCaul. Jeanie's birth certificate records that her mother was the widow of Arnold Scossa who died in New South Wales in 1886.
I've just discovered that Arnold Scossa emigrated as an unassisted emigrant from Plymouth - describing himself as British and single - on 21 August 1885, arriving in Sydney on 5 October. And then an Arnold Scossa died in South Balmain district, New South Wales in 1905.
So, it seems that Helen was not widowed until 1905.
As with all genealogical answers, it throws up more questions! Why did Arnold leave England when his son was just 6 months old? Why did he describe himself as single? What sort of life did Arnold make for himself in Australia? And did my grandad's uncle know any of this - or did he believe that his father had died in 1886?
