On display

I inherited a box of old family photographs from my maternal grandfather's side of the family.  There had obviously been a family rift between my grandfather and his relations because I since found aunts and uncles and distant cousins in Dundee, some of whom were still staying there when I visited as a child. 

This one caught my eye but I couldn't figure out who it was. 
There was a family resemblance and writing on the back which helpfully says "I needn't tell you as you will recognise the group"  and I thought it might a cousin of my great grandfather and  that the girl on the left was my grandfather's sister (who died  a few years later aged 10 from TB) 

I picked it up a week or so ago and thought - wait a minute the man looks like my great-grandfather's brother but he and his wife only had two children. I then did a bit more searching - the two children had their grandmothers surname as a middle name and so I tried for other children with that name, no luck, and hen the mother's maiden name and found a potential match. I checked and found the third child.  All rather convoluted but for me sums up how family searching is a combination of persistence and being methodical coupled with the occassional inspired guess. 

I then had a look online to try and find out more information about my great granduncle and found some navel records in the National Archives at Kew which you can access for free at present. These told me that he was 5 foot 2 inches (my grandfather also wasn't tall) and, like me, had hazel eyes. 

It has been good to spend some time today on my family tree.  

I realised a few weeks back  that some of my volunteering was expanding and taking away time from other things I want to do/need to do and so have set aside blocks of time for volunteering and taking the approach (emergencies excepted) that I will do what I can in that time. I sometime get the sense that other volunteers who are not retired think if you are retired you have nothing else to do. Little do they know :-).