Always Remembered

When I was pregnant with Kai, in those days where I could still sit down and concentrate on something for more than 20 minutes and would often spend an entire day curled up in bed reading, I read a lovely book called Ursula, Under by Ingrid Hill. Although the book itself didn’t entirely grab me, the concept behind it did. In it we are shown how miraculous the life of one child is through her genetic history: all the chance encounters and extraordinary stories that led her ancestors to meet, to survive, to have children of their own, cumulating down the centuries in HER; her story. You are left with the powerful and moving sense of just how wonderful it is to be alive, and an enormous feeling of gratitude to those people who lived before you. Those who carved a living, who fought for love, who lost and suffered, but who lived long enough to have children and though them bequeath you their life blood and their history.

So moved was I, in fact, that I began to research my family tree; something I have continued to do on and off since. Through it I discovered a passion for research, quizzing family members, scouring census records and tracking down birth certificates. It has been enormous fun – like being a genetic detective hunting down leads and following up clues. Through my research I’ve built up a fairly comprehensive picture of my ancestors, tracing some branches back to the 1700′s. At the moment it’s mostly bare bones, where they lived, names and dates and some information on occupations etc. but gradually I am starting to get a sense of the people behind these facts. They are really coming to life for me.

Through my research I discovered my dear Grandma had a brother and a sister that died in infancy both of whom I had no knowledge of; that my Great-Grandma was born out of wedlock and brought up by a man that wasn’t her father; that my ancestors seemed to make a habit of marrying their housekeepers; that others were orphaned, or had half their family wiped out within months of each other, most likely through illness. Through census records I’ve seen my family progress through their careers, starting as assistants and ending up employing workers of their own. I’ve learnt that my ancestors were mostly people of the land and skilled craftspeople: farmers, blacksmiths, master tailors. One branch had a very strong affinity with the sea working in ship yards and in the Navy, and many more spent their lives working on the Railways.

I never knew it was possible to feel such a connection to people who I will never meet, who lived long before me, but I do. I find myself wondering about them, what they looked like, what made them smile, what were the little things that defined them; a habit, a gesture perhaps. I wish I could know them, the good and the not-so-good. Could see them. Because they are a part of me, I am made up of their stories. I wonder how many of them were writers, dreamers. How many of them lay awake at night with thoughts bigger than their heads. Who would wonder about life and what it all meant. It makes me so sad that I may never know their histories.

I plan to spend the rest of my life finding out more about them, as a legacy to Kai so he can one day know where he came from, but also for me, perhaps as  way of understanding who I am. Thinking about them, investing time in learning about them, grounds me in a way that is extremely good for me, given that I live in my head most of the time. I often feel so disconnected from things around me yet the knowledge that they are all there, stretching out in history behind me, makes me concious of the deep roots that bind me to this place, this time. And they make me realise how lucky I am to be alive, and what a gift they have given me.

I will leave you with the story of how, I believe, I inadvertently may have got my name, discovered through my research. It is on my mind this weekend, as you’ll soon discover why.

My Great Grandmother’s name was Annie. She lived with her family in a tiny village in Kent, was a strict Baptist and a dress maker. Annie had a little brother, Joseph, born when she was 16 years old. I don’t know this, but I imagine that she doted on him, as did probably the whole family, given that he was the baby, and perhaps an unexpected addition to the family given that he was a whole 10 years younger than his next brother (very rare in those days), or perhaps a longed-for last baby after years of loss, born to his mother Emily when she was 42 years old.

On the 17th April 1917, when Joseph was just 20 years old, he was killed in France in the trenches of the First World War. He was Rifleman in the 10th Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and died of gunshot wounds fighting for his country.

Annie was pregnant at the time with her third and last child. I cannot imagine what receiving the news of her brothers death must have been like for her: the thought of losing my own brother fills me with a cold and horrible fear. I will never see her tears or know what pain she must have felt. But I do know that four and half months later, when Annie gave birth to a son, she named him Joseph after her lost brother.

Joseph. My grandfather who I never met and who also died tragically young before I was born. The grandfather after whom I was, in part, named Josie.

So this post is for Annie’s Joseph. My namesake and Great-Great Uncle. Who died in the war and whom I never knew and will never forget.

Thank you.

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