Half-Nieces – I never knew I had.

I mentioned that I intended 'to investigate further to determine whether I have any other living half-relatives' following my discovery that I have two half-sisters and that they both married.

The result of my efforts confirmed that there are three daughters (Jane Elizabeth, Patricia Ann and Kathleen) from Eileen's marriage to Eric: that Barbara and her husband Francis had at least one daughter (Claire). This would make the children my half-nieces.

Further research seems to indicate that at least two of the nieces married in the 1980's. I don't intend following-up on this information, at this time, as the link to my father is getting too distant.

© Elliot Sampford 2014 

Marriage Certificates can pinpoint Family-Secrets.

I discovered from my parents' marriage certificate that this was not my mother's first. It also was not my father's.

A new name has been brought into my family-tree from the certificate details. In column 4 titled 'Condition' I'm informed that Dad was 'The divorced husband of Alice Victoria Leagas'. This was a surprise – the third from one piece of paper.

Research confirmed his marriage to Alice was in October 1926, twenty-four years earlier than his second. I'm assuming there wasn't a third: well I haven't found another one yet.

There was a question that needed to be asked: could there be any children from the marriage?

The answer – Yes.

It took some lateral thinking to find them, but I have Birth Certificates which confirm Fred and Alice had two daughters; Eileen in August 1927 and Barbara in April 1929.

I've discovered that I have two half-sisters! Two living-secrets kept from me, and my brother when he was alive. Thanks Dad.

Of course I have to wonder whether Eileen and Barbara know their father had two sons some twenty years after them. Would they want to know? Would their parents have wanted them to know?

I've confirmed that my new-found-siblings have married, and now I need to investigate further to determine whether I have any other living half-relatives.

For the forty-five years, since my brother died, I believed that I was my father's sole living child: another illusion shattered.

 © Elliot Sampford 2014

Short-Version Birth Certificates hide the truth.

The copies of the birth and marriage certificates I'd ordered (I mentioned it to you a couple of weeks ago) from the General Register Office arrived and confirmed my suspicions about family-skeletons.

No laughing at my middle name!

I can only remember having a short-version (rectangular and only contains the child's details) birth certificate; rather than the usual full-version (oblong and contains the child's and parent's details); to record my entry into the world.

I believe the same applied for my older brother. I have to make this assumption because when I became custodian of the family's records, on the death of my mother, strangely there were no copies of birth or marriage certificates to confirm our history from the 1940's.

During my early childhood I was led to believe we were a typical 1950's family of husband, wife and their children. It was unusual during that era for unmarried couples to live together and even more for them to have children before marriage. Not in our family!

I now have an unabridged version of my certificate which shows the ('Name, surname and maiden surname of mother') details of my mother as 'Doris Edith Sampford otherwise Boath formerly Longman'. So that's what I wasn't supposed to see. On my brother's full-version certificate, acquired with mine, the words 'Sampford otherwise' weren't included. The term 'otherwise' seems more polite than 'alias'. Who was this man named Boath?

A similar compilation of the term was used, twenty-two months later, on my parent's marriage certificate, with the names Sampford and Boath being transposed. I also now have a christian name: who was Ronald Boath?

My mother and father, even after they separated a few years later, were good at keeping secrets; so were my one-time-pious, maternal grandparents; when they were alive. Perhaps they should have considered that truth will out at sometime. Perhaps they did and thought that as long as it was hidden until after they were dead it didn't matter.

I accept that in the 1950's and 1960's there were 'taboo' subjects which were not discussed in families between adults and children. But, who benefited from the reality of the situation being covered up, not talked about, not acknowledged? Who, and what, has suffered as a result of the conspiracy of silence?

The exhumation of this particular skeleton hasn't made any difference to what I believe about myself. It hasn't made any difference to the way I feel about my parents: my opinion was developed by their actions over time. What it has helped to explain more fully is why the four, and then three, of us, as a family group, were treated as the 'Black Sheep' by our middle-class Longman relatives. However, on an individual basis, I did not find this the situation with three of my childless Great-Aunts.

Do I regret seeking out the truth, hidden by the short-version birth certificate, as part of my family history research – No! This is just the beginning: there are at least two more bodies to be confirmed.

 © Elliot Sampford 2014

My Family's History revisited.

Me with my Grandparents (Longman)

 It has been seven years since I last undertook any meaningful research into my family's history.

I stopped because we moved to Spain and the postal service there was not to be trusted to deliver mail, even though it had been correctly addressed. I was concerned that any copies of birth, marriage and death certificates that I needed to order from the General Register Office, in the United Kingdom, would disappear; either into someone's pocket for illegal purposes of identity fraud; or delivered to the wrong post box; or into another time dimension and universe.

Now as a resident back in the UK; I believe I can rely on the Royal Mail; I have the opportunity to visit archives when needed; the hunt has been brought out of hibernation.

The subscription to a well-known research website has been renewed; a family-tree software program has been purchased and installed on my laptop computer; a revision of my previous research has been carried out; a small batch of certificates of b.m.d. have been ordered from the GRO and should arrive in the next few days.

I hope when the copies of the certificates arrive the information shown confirms my research: and suspicions that I have found a couple of those 'family-skeletons' that my predecessors didn't talk about.

 I try to restrict the amount of time I spend on research but it is so easy to loose track of time when following up a lead to a possible new branch of the family-tree.

 I hope to be able to keep you up-to-date with my progress. Perhaps your ancestors might be linked to mine. Do these surnames mean anything to you; Sampford, Longman, Robins, Daley, Ruffell and Arkley: did you have relatives living in Walthamstow, West Ham, Whitechapel, Hackney, Bishops Stortford, Takeley or Epping from 1800 onwards?

© Elliot Sampford 2014