Under the Parson's Nose...a Bates Family (Re)Union

One of the many joys of family history is connecting with like-minded people, drawing together strands of the family tree that have not been in contact for years, sometimes for generations. And meeting these people in real life.

Last weekend I brought together three branches of my Bates family tree in Weston Longville, the village in which we can all claim to have strong roots.

Sunday lunch in the Parson Woodforde pub - formerly the Five Ringers and the home in which my grandfather's aunt Emily lived as a young woman - was the perfect way for us all to get to know each other, share our own stories and look through old photographs.

Being Norfolk, there were - of course - many connections between us all, beyond our blood ties! It is, even in the 21st century, a small world.

Saluting the Parson, whose diaries were the catalyst for my genealogy hobby, I led the group across the lane to All Saints churchyard and gave a guided tour of the Bates, Gray and Dunnell gravestones to show how we were all related to each other.

We then headed to the site of Bates Farm - long since gone - and where a couple is building their dream home. As we stood at the gate taking photos, the couple approached and asked what we were doing: very swiftly we were all invited on to their property and given a guided tour. A real highlight for all of us.

Above: the Bates family - and supportive spouses - at All Saints, Weston Longville. The plaque on the church porch is Henry Duning, our ancestor. I wonder what he would of make of it all...

New discoveries close to home: three 'new' great aunts

'What can you possibly discover after researching your tree for so long?' asked a friend the other day. Quite a lot, it seems. And quite momentous things at that. Such as three 'new' great aunts.

My Scottish granddad's family was complicated: his mother had four sons by three men between 1912 and 1932 -  and she used several different forms of her name. To my grandma, my mum and me she was always known - in stories, as she died in 1941 - as Jeanie Miller.

I only spoke with Bob, my granddad's older half-brother, only once. I plucked his number from the phone book in 1992 and called him. During the conversation he described his childhood, his mother, his home - he said he was very fond of Archie, his younger brother (my granddad) even though they hadn't seen each other since the 1960s.

One comment stayed with me for years afterwards. Bob claimed he had a younger sister, Mary, and that 'she went bad'. I enquired with my granddad's younger half-brother Joe (with whom Bob had no relationship) and he denied outright any knowledge of any girls in the family, or any rumours of any girls.

This week I discovered that Mary existed. And that she wasn't the only girl in the family. Suddenly, my granddad had three sisters - and I had three 'new' great aunts.

Thanks to the records offered by ScotlandsPeople I managed to trace three daughters of my great grandmother Jeanie Miller and her partner, Frederick Daly. The first two - Mary and Helen, twins - were born in 1925 and died in 1926. Mary came along in 1927. All three bore the middle name Miller and the surname Daly. Their birth certificates bear the signature of Jeanie Miller and F Daly.

My granddad would have been 4 years old when the twins arrived and just over 6 when Mary was born. He must have remembered her. But, just like everything else in his childhood, he never talked about her.

So now that half of Bob's account has been proved true, I guess I have to try to find out what happened to Mary and what he meant by 'she went bad'...

My Aunt May - Lenin's neighbour?

Living in London, I don't know my neighbours' names. In fact, given that there are five sets of neighbours (not counting opposite and behind) I probably wouldn't even recognise most of them if I passed them on the way back from the Tube. However, I'd like to think that in days of yore even Londoners were a little more acquainted with those living nearest to them, hence the potential link between Aunt May and V I Lenin.


Aunt May was my great grandfather's sister. She was born Marion Eleanor Bates in 1870 in the Norfolk village of Felthorpe, and moved to London after marrying a man from Kent called Charles Holder. Their first son, Percy, was born in Norwich in 1899; second son Albert was born in London in 1902; and daughter Florrie arrived in 1905. A daughter Emily was born in 1894 but died aged 3 years.

In 1911 the family is listed as living at 20 Holford Square, London. Charles is described as a bill poster, a worker 'outside', while "Marion" is noted as 'House Wife'. The three children are all attending school. Two other families shared the address: Frank Webb, a shop assistant, and his wife and toddler; and Harriet Grieves, aged 54 and noted as 'At Home' with her son Harry, a bath attendant, and a 22-year female boarder [given these three shared just two rooms, it must have been cosy].

I recall my Great Aunt Freda saying that her Aunt May had lost her Norfolk accent and sounded like a Cockney. Apparently, she dressed in a very old fashioned way (old fashioned to a woman born in 1909!) and her voluminous skirts would rustle as she walked along. In 1931 Aunt May attended Freda's wedding in Spalding with son Percy and daughter Florrie. More recently I was in contact with a long lost cousin who was Marion's granddaughter who told me that during WW2 her grandparents' house was destroyed in an air raid.

So I set about trying to trace Holford Square via Google. Pretty swiftly it became apparent that the area around Holford Square - just to the south east of Kings Cross - had been very badly hit during WW2 bombing raids. Holford Square was almost completely flattened during a raid in May 1941 and my Aunt May made homeless aged 70. There is plenty of online documentation (thanks to a marvellous website called LocalLocalHistory.co.uk) that describes how the area was rebuilt after the War, including a War Damage Map that pinpoints exactly where 20 Holford Square once stood and that its state was described as in 'total destruction' after the raid.

So what about Lenin?

Well, isn't Google a marvellous thing? Type in Holford Square and it is revealed as the former home of one rather well known Russian called Vladimir Lenin and his wife between 1902-1903. Sources suggest that their behaviour raised a few eyebrows: according to Sarah Young, lecturer at UCL Mr and Mrs Lenin disturbed their landlady, a Mrs Yeo, by 'hanging curtains on a Sunday'. A small misdemeanour given the upsets to follow.

Lenin and his wife lived at 30 Holford Square, while Aunt May - the same age as the Russian revolutionary - lived at number 20. Whether Aunt May was at that address in 1902-1903 is yet to be confirmed (Albert Holder's birth certificate would prove it), but the Holder family lived in the square for several decades until it was bombed in 1941.

Aunt May died in 1966 over in Hounslow, west London. She would have known about the Lenin link as a memorial was unveiled to honour him in the bombed out Holford Square in 1942. Pathe News recorded the auspicious occasion - the severity of the bomb damage is very much visible - watch it here.

Maybe it always pays to know your neighbours!

*My thanks to those individuals and organisations whose material is referenced here.

The Hills are Alive! Well...

I made an old woman jump recently.

Picture the scene. An Archives search room, silent other than for the whirr of micro film readers and the occasional pencil sharpener.

Suddenly, the beardy and slightly youthful (compared to the other researchers, at least) amatuer family tree detective exclaims "YES!" followed by "Found you!". The little old lady fair jumped from her chair. Glares worthy of Paddington Bear over half moon specs ensued, although I'm sure I detected a knowing nod from one old chap who looked as if he was checking for his own baptism record from the mid-18th century.

Fellow geneal-addicts will recognise that this was a Eureka moment for me - I had found a long searched for lost ancestor. I found the lead in a Will and I wholeheartedly recommend researchers to check out Wills for information/confirmation of relationships and social status - even suggestions fo family feuds. Even if your own ancestors didn't write a Will (or have anything to leave!), do check out Wills from people in the same community as they may receive a legacy or be Executor/Executrix to an aunt - or a witness at the signing of a Will. Servants and friends are sometimes named.

Similarly, Terriers can provide great leads on where your ancestors' homes and lands were located.

My whoop of joy was caused by finding the Will of Francis Hill of Itteringham in Norfolk, dated 1689. He mentions his wife Barbary, five sons and several grandchildren. One of the grandsons is Henry Hill, who was at the very top of my family tree for over 20 years. So this single document has taken me back two generations (I think Francis Hill must have been born about 1620), provided a detailed overview of the wider family, where they lived and what they did - and also given me solid leads for tracing other Hill families in central Norfolk.

YES indeed!

Dead man walking?

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?