Success Stories

Take a leap of faith, it could pay off. My Aunt at 88yrs old gave me an old photo that she said was of her fathers brother, although she said she never knew he had a brother. She knew very little of her family history, they never spoke of it. I had found her father had a half-brother Clarles born in Dorset 1830 rumoured to have gone to sea. The photo was a late 1800's picture of guy with a grey beard and wearing what looked like a navy unifrom and the inscription on the back said he was waiting to get his medals. I searched the records for later entries of Charles but found none, I'd almost given up hope and written him off as lost at sea. I tried a Google search (I recommend a Google search) up popped a tag for a museum picture of a Charles with the same name leaving the workhouse in South Shields around 1905, I nearly fell of the chair, it was the same guy still wearing the same clothes. Everyone said no way, it could be anyone, it was just too far fetched and a worthless leap of faith but I did not give up. I had always looked along the South coast for my family and South Shields had never been spoken of. I asked my Aunt if she knew of family in South Shields and she said no. The 1901 census pulled up my man Charles in South Shields born in Dorset 1830, seaman, unmarried and uncle to the head of the house. I went to see my Aunt and showed her the pictures and census print outs and the lights suddenly came on, out she comes with 'oh...I think that would be Maggi's family, Yes, I think they were cousins of fathers' but she knew nothing else except for a Maggi who came to work in London once but she only met her a couple of times. Turns out they are a branch of the family but with Charles putting unmarried and being in South Shields I would never have found them, the information was buried deep in my Aunts past and memory.