Musings From the Bower 5

What a change in the weather – it suddenly turned so hot that it was unbearable to sit in most places in the garden, except in the bower of course. Sensibly furnished with wooden benches and cotton cushions, it’s much more pleasant to relax in than perching on the metal garden chairs which burn your legs when the sun heats them up. The clematis plants are all stunning at moment; huge flowers in shades of purple, maroon, pink and pale lilac.

Recently I returned to searching out my family tree. This has been an ongoing project for at least forty years, and much of my original research was carried out in the hallowed portals of Somerset House, the original home of the public records office. There it was possible – though you needed strong muscles – to lift down the enormous leather-bound volumes containing lists of births, marriages or deaths, while an official kept a beady eye on you to check that you hadn’t consulted more volumes than you were entitled to look at. Later, the records were moved to St Catherine’s House, before ending up at the Family Records Centre in North London.

Nowadays it is far, far easier to trace your family as so many records, especially the various censuses, are on line, although you still need to buy birth, marriage and death certificates because although the indexes are now also on line, you don’t see the details. Incidentally, I was amazed to discover when looking through the online 1891 census recently, that at the time my grandfather and great grandfather were living in Somerset House, as my great grandfather was a cabman and groom in the stables there. I so wish I had thought to ask my granddad about his life, especially about his time in the First World War where he won a Military Medal for bravery. I wish too that I had asked my gran about her time as a ladies’ maid in the early 1900s; apparently she worked in the home of a cousin of the Duke of Argyll, in London, but when you’re young you assume that people will be around for ever. I’ve no idea how to begin searching for a cousin of the Duke of Argyll when I don’t even know his – or her – name. He probably had lots of cousins.

Family history is great fun, though, and immensely interesting. I’ve found a black sheep, a relative accused of stealing a purse and being subsequently transported to Australia. I’ve also discovered that my great x 3 grandfather was drowned in a pond near his farm in the 1800s, but as his purse containing all the takings from a day spent at Ely market had disappeared the death seems suspicious. Yet I can’t find a newspaper report, and the coroner’s record has ‘disappeared’. Hmm…… Sounds like a case for an early Miss Marples!