Ninety years on

Family history is about so much more than long-dead ancestors. It is about our immediate family, our loved ones.

My grandma Rosie celebrated her 90th birthday yesterday. In fine form, she had a merry time and made us all laugh with her gleeful antics. "I'm ninety years old, I can do what I like!" she announced - and promptly knocked back a fourth schooner of sherry.

The world she was born into in 1922 is so different to our own. Born at home, just four years after the end of the Great War; a decade after the Titanic disaster; with George V reigning over a global Empire; and Lloyd George as Prime Minster. Home was a back-to-back terrace in the very centre of heavily-industrialised Bolton, a town packed with cotton mills and iron foundaries that belched out smoke and provided employment for thousands.

She was her mother's first child - her father had a teenage son by his first wife who was living with his own maternal grandparents - and was followed by a sister, Nora 22 months later. There were plenty of local aunts and uncles on both sides and numerous cousins but no grandparents. Sadly, with the death of her mother in 1925, my grandma lost all contact with her maternal family and when a new stepmother came along in 1926 most of her paternal family were distanced.

Yesterday was all about celebrating her ninety years. With her daughter, grandson, son-in-law, former son-in-law and brother-in-law, she enjoyed drinks, food, a cake, flowers, presents and laughter. Friends (mostly in their late 60s and early 70s) joined in, as did her neighbours from the sheltered housing she lives in.

There were, of course, plenty of people whose absence was felt, not least my granddad Archie to whom grandma was devoted and who died in 1986. Grandma's two surviving sisters weren't able to come (due to distance or ill health) and her late brothers were missed. My gift to her was a Memory Book created online and published to a satisfyingly high standard, filled with carefully selected, cherished photographs from her lifetime: all those absent featured in the book -  and were with us in spirit.

Yesterday is a memory I will cherish for my lifetime - and family history in the making.

And here is grandma Rosie at 90 with her Memory Book.

Long lost cousins - found at last

Further to my earlier post about finding my grandmother's maternal aunt Ada, I have now received images of Ada and her husband, Edward Holgarth. Ada (1886-1943) and Bertha were two of the five children of Squire Chadwick (1857-1915) and his common law wife Sophia Haywood, or Heywood (1852-1901). Their other children were Jane (born 1881); Squire, who died aged 9 in 1899; and Martha (1884-1926), whose will named Edward Holgarth as executor.

Ada(above) and her husband, Edward (below) - my great grandmother's older sister.

And here is my great grandmother Bertha Meehan (born Chadwick), 1893-1925, at work in the weaving shed with two pals (she is on the left).

Thanks again to Ancestry and GenesReunited for helping rejoin our family after 86 years!

Liverpool leads

I'm not a Scouser. I sometimes describe myself as a Brummy, but then I did spend almost ten years in the city as a child and teenager and my parents still live there. But I am definately not a Scouser.

However, since being a very small child I've known that my maternal grandmother's father was born in Toxteth Park - making him a Liverpudlian by birth. In a family of secrets, this was one fact (about the only one) that was common knowledge. Even before I became interested (ok, obsessed) with my family history, I had researched enough to know that Toxteth Park was a rather rough and ready district, down by the docks.

My great grandfather Tommy Meehan was born in 1884 in Toxteth Park. Two years later his sister Annie followed. Before Tommy and after Annie, all the children in this Irish Catholic family were born in Bolton - where their parents had married in 1872. So why the move to Liverpool for a few years? I'd always assumed it was an economic move: 'let's try life in the big city, can't be worse than this mill town!'. But then they went back to Bolton, so maybe it was that bad after all.

Or were there other reasons for the family move? Recent Catholic church records published by Ancestry.co.uk reveal that Tommy and Annie were both christened in Our Lady of Mount Carmel church in Toxteth; they were born at different addresses (which supports the evidence that the family moved regularly - moonlight flits, maybe?); and best of all - their godmothers were Meehans, too.

Until this point, I had no information about Meehans in England prior to the 1872 wedding and that great grandfather Tommy was named after his father and grandfather (gleaned from certificates).

The records reveal that my great grandfather's godparents were Mary Meehan and Patrick McMara; Annie's godparents were Esther Meehan and Bernard Caufield.

So - two new Meehans!

Initial research suggests there are two Esther Meehans to consider: firstly, the wife of John Meehan (born Esther Hatch), and secondly, the wife of another Thomas Meehan. The latter had two children in the same years as my Tommy and Annie and on both occasions recorded an address within three doors of my Meehan family. Were there cousins called Thomas Meehan, both in Liverpool in the mid-1880s, and is that why my great grandfather's parents moved to Liverpool, to join their extended family?

As always, one genealogical answer throws up many further questions!

Wedding Wall

The whole country has gone mad for the latest Royal Wedding, between Prince William and Kate...sorry, Catherine Middleton (what would be wrong with Queen Kate? It's not exactly as if the previous Queen Catherines had a lot of fun!).


So here are some happy nuptials from my family tree, my own Wedding Wall.


First, the happy day in 1970 when my own wonderful parents tied the knot on a gusty August day in Blackburn. I have always marvelled that they married so young - my mother was 21.5 years old! Most of the people in the picture are now dead, the church is long gone and the town itself...well, if you've ever been to Blackburn no more needs to be said.

Back to Farnworth in 1920 and my great grandmother Bertha looks ever so slightly delirious with delight in her floppy hat and white dress. Great granddad Tommy Meehan had fought throughout WW1, ending up being rsponsible for the well-being of thousands of Chinese labourers brought over (enslaved) to dig trenches.


The others in the picture are two of his sisters, Polly Critchely and Rose Littler (left), and brother in law James Littler. Shortly after this, Rose emigrated to Canada while Tommy & Bertha named their first daughter (my grandma) after her.




Summer 1935 in Whaplode, Lincolnshire and the wedding day of my grandparents Geoff and Ruby. Gathered here we have a jolly little band of (left to right): Desmond, Tony & Richard Warner (my gran's half brothers); Denzyl Cartledge (my father's cousin) and Nancy Hewson (my gran's cousin).


The happy couple honeymooned in Wales and lived in Whaplode for a few years before moving to Spalding, where my dad came along. He stayed in contact with Nancy, and her daughter Diane can be seen on the church steps in the top photo.