The people who MADE my holiday

Margaret alone in London on the EYE.

Travelling alone can be really lonely.  I remember this well from 1974 when I planned a two week return trip to Norway, a country that made a great impression on me whilst on a three week Protea camping trip for under 35s.  I booked my transport and accommodation prior to leaving London and so much wish I hadn't, since I met other young people looking for travelling partners and couldn't change my plans.

I've learned from that, so apart from key cities like London -  where I know I can cancel a booking with 24 hours notice - I've left my travels fairly flexible.  This meant I was able to stay with Alex and Viv - who I hardly knew - when they invited me to Kent, halfway through my stay.

And I'm so pleased I did.

I already knew most of the cousins and friends I stayed with this time, having met my young American cousins three years ago in Panama City, and I'd met most of my English cousins - Ray, Linda and Ange whilst on our motor home holiday in 2008, and stayed with them the following year.  I'd also introduced Carole to John in 2008, after having not seen her since the 70s. This time I was also able to meet other distant cousins - Sarah (nee Tucker), Hannah and her parents (Rose cousins), Moira (also a Rose cousin), and Claire, who is no relation at all, but we share cousins.

Some of these new cousins and I have been communicating on Facebook for what seems like years now, so meeting them was just like continuing a conversation!

Elizabeth with Isabella and Carolina in Irvine, Orange County

Caroline in San Francisco

In California, I caught up with two of my second cousin Shirley's grand-daughters, Elizabeth and Caroline.  Elizabeth advised me on accommodation, took me to Hollywood and to the Ellen Degeneres show at Warner Bros, then invited me down to Orange County to spend a day with the family.

I stayed four nights with Caroline and Kent in Menlo Park, and Caroline took me sightseeing in San Francisco and down the coast to Monterey, Salinas and to see the coast.

I love both these girls dearly.  They both lead such interesting lives, so committed to family life and their own career goals. Caroline is supporting her husband as he studies for a new career whilst totally involved in her own, and Elizabeth putting her career goals on hold whilst she commits herself to her young family.

Shirley - matriarch of my American cousins

In London, I was thrilled to be able to catch up with their grandmother Shirley, her three daughters Donna, Cheryl and Kathryn, and her sister-in-law Johnnie who had flown over from Florida and Tennessee for a 10 day holiday.  Shirley was born in London but left England to marry Nolan Ball, an American serviceman in 1951. At Cheryl's invitation, I had met the whole family in Florida in 2009 after "discovering" Shirley just a few months earlier.

Tracey, Donna, Cheryl and Trish at back, Johnnie, Shirley, Ray,
Margaret and Kathryn at front - in Banbury

We were able to travel together by rail to Banbury in Oxfordshire to meet our mutual second cousin Ray and his family.  It was so good to unite after nearly 70 years of Shirley being "lost" to the family through her mother's early passing in 1942.

Shirley, Ray and I are descended from three Reed sisters born in Southampton between 1881 and 1884.

Linda and Peter on our day trip to Chichester

After London, I travelled to Angmering in Sussex, to stay with Linda and Peter.  Linda was a Tucker, my second cousin on my dad's side.  We've become more like sisters than distant cousins since I first discovered her in 2006.  I stayed with them at the beginning and towards the end of my holiday.  They spoiled me rotten. Both times.

Linda meets Ange for the first time.

They also insisted on driving me down to Southampton - twice.  I think they just wanted to meet Ange and Paul, who they'd been hearing about for four years.

Ange and I met about five years ago through Genes Reunited (a family history site) when we discovered that we shared great great great grandparents, making us 4th cousins.

Enid, Margaret, Bette, Angela, Robert and Paul

Ange has become a dear friend, and we have plenty in common.  She encouraged me to make Southampton my base, which I gladly accepted, it was a real home away from home.  I wanted to really get to know Southampton on this trip anyway - there is so much to see relating to my family history research in the old town and in the New Forest where my Tuckers lived for at least two centuries.

John and Sue

From Southampton, I took an overnight trip to the Isle of Wight, where I met Sue and John Moxon, active members of the Moxon Society.

Back in Southampton, Ange and Paul drove me down to Branksome near Poole, where I met a Facebook friend and fourth cousin Hannah and her parents.  I don't have any photos of them unfortunately.

Sharn, April, CarolAnn, Eve and Carole

I left Ange on Wednesday 6th June, to travel to Coventry to reunite with my friend Carole who I first met in Sydney in 1972.  She was spending two years in Australia doing what I did not long after in 1973-75.  We shared a room in Strathfield for a few months.  She is now a grandmother to Eve, who is a very friendly 10 year old.  I also met Carole's three daughters, Sharn, CarolAnn and April.  Aren't they a photogenic family?

Margaret and Claire

From Coventry I caught four trains to Barnsley in Yorkshire.  This was a long way north, but I'd promised John to check out the villages and streets where his great great grandparents lived.  My Facebook friend Claire, who also lives in Yorkshire offered to drive me around.  I'd never met Claire, who I'd discovered on Genes Reunited when we were researching a test cricketer who was related to both our families.  We had a great day together.






From Barnsley it was back to Banbury where I stayed overnight with Ray and Trish.  Ray was still recovering from his big heart operation.  The next morning, our mutual cousin Alex arrived from Kent.  We'd never met Alex, and he was keen to find out about his newly discovered family.

Alex and Viv

Alex and his wife Viv drove me back to their place in a small village in Kent, and I had a lovely time getting to know them and going through his family photos.

Strangely, their surname is the same as my mother's mother's family who came from a neighbouring village - Ightham, but the families are not related.  But because of my interest in Ightham, Alex and Viv spent a great deal of time showing me places of interest to me in the village.

I also met their son and daughter and their two grandsons, at a pleasant night out at the St Julian's club at Seven Oaks.

Margaret, Sarah and Linda - all with maiden names Tucker

Alex and Viv drove me down to Sussex, where once again I'd arranged to stay with Linda and Peter.  We'd arranged to meet another Tucker cousin - this time it was Sarah in Surrey.  Linda and I had phoned her and been in touch by email and Facebook since about 2008, but this was the first time we'd managed to arrange a "date".  And what a fun night we had.

From there I returned to Southampton, once again being driven down by Linda and Peter.  I stayed a further five days with Ange and Paul, and we continued to explore Southampton, Winchester and the New Forest.

John and Moira

Ray reading the John Rose story

I also took the opportunity to meet another fourth cousin, Moira and her husband John who live near Bude in Cornwall.  Moira is also a descendant of John Rose, the subject of the book I distributed to cousins on that side of the family wherever I travelled.  (I had taken 13 copies with me).





So you can see why I enjoyed my trip - wonderful times with some great cousins and friends.

Still it was lovely to come home after more than five weeks away.  It was good to be able to talk to John almost every day via Skype, but nothing like the real thing!

Thank you dear friends on four continents who followed my blog - my brother Jim was touring Thailand at the time.  I think the French views were from our friends Stewart and Lesley who are touring the canals of Europe in their wheelchair accessible narrow-boat.

Here are the statistics, which include multiple dip-ins, apart from your author.


United Kingdom
598
Australia
524
United States
391
Russia
20
New Zealand
14
Thailand
12
Germany
6
France
4
Ireland
2
Canada
1

Goodbye for now. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, hosts and blog followers.  Happy travels, all of you, and may we meet again!

SeaCity at Southampton

Linda and Peter, Ange and Paul - dear friends and cousins

This morning, Linda and Peter drove me down to Totton near the New Forest, where I am once again staying with Ange and Paul.

After a welcome cup of coffee, it was time to say goodbye till who knows when to Linda and Peter.  They'd love to come out to see me and Australia, but it's a bit of a worry in Europe right now.  But we'll definitely see each other again.  I love them heaps.

The old court house converted

As soon as they left to drive back to Sussex, Ange, Paul and I drove into Southampton to visit the SeaCity Museum.  This is a brand new museum which has replaced two older museums - the Maritime Museum and the God's House Museum.  This year is the anniversary - as if we didn't know - of the Titanic Disaster, and this museum is dedicated to just that, but is much more as well.  It has a history of the different groups of people who moved through Southampton on their way to somewhere else - soldiers off to war, Basque children coming temporarily in 1937, Russian emigrants arriving overland to travel to far off places, ten pound Poms on their way to Australia....

Replica of a 2nd class cabin on the Titanic

We had a very happy three hours wandering through the museum and all agreed that it would take two or three visits to see it all and maybe more to absorb it.

The vast majority of the crew of the Titanic - employees of the White Star Line - were residents of Southampton, and less than a third survived.  The dots show where these crew members who lost their lives lived.

As we came away, it started sprinkling, and now the rain is once more setting in, and the forecast is for it to keep up until at least I leave England - less than a week now.

In eight days time I will be home.

In just a couple of hours, Parramatta Computer Pals for Seniors will be holding their June monthly meeting, the second that I have missed.  I will be thinking of you all!

The Tucker girls

Margaret, Linda and Sarah - all Tuckers, all related

When I started tracing my father's ancestors in 2006, I put the family tree on Genes Reunited, and within 12 months I had found Linda (Tucker) in Sussex - my second cousin - and Sarah (Tucker) in Surrey.  Sarah is Linda and my fourth cousin once removed.

We all share an ancestor William Tucker, born in Hamptworth near Downton, Wiltshire in 1764.  Linda and I also share great grandparents, George William Tucker and Agnes Mary Hardy, born in Southampton.

I first met Linda and her husband Peter when John and I came to England in 2008.  However, although Sarah and I have been Facebook friends since about the same time, we have never managed to meet.

So tonight we did it!  I'm currently staying at Linda and Peter's in Angmering, Sussex, so we arranged to meet about half way between there and Sarah's place at Hindhead, Surrey.  Sarah suggested the Keeper's Arms at Trotten, three miles the other side of Midhurst, Sussex.  Sarah's neice Thais, who also works at the Keeper's Arms on Sundays joined us, and we had great service from her Romanian friend Ali who works there full time.

You can tell we had a hoot of a time.  You'd think we'd known each other for years.  We have at least one trait in common.  We all talk nineteen to the dozen.  Poor Peter.  But he bore it with fortitude, and even looked like he was enjoying himself.

Now we just need to persuade Linda to join us on Facebook.  I think this time we might succeed.





If you want to know more about our ancestors, check out my other blog:
http://tuckersinsouthampton.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/george-tucker-1802-1886-man-with-no.html  Tuckers of Southampton, Bramshaw and Downton.

Kent with Alex and Viv - more cousins!

Alex and Viv Palmer

Well, I left cold, windy and wet Barnsley on Saturday, and three trains later, arrived at Banbury  where my cousins Tracey and Trish (Pat) picked me up at the station, and we had a quiet night in with Ray who whilst recovering well from his heart operation, had had a bad couple of days.  He'd been out trimming his privet hedge, not an ideal task for an asthmatic.

They'd been expecting rain, but it didn't eventuate.  A  brief reprieve, since it's been raining ever since!  Our newly discovered mutual cousin Alex and his wife Viv arrived mid morning on Sunday, were introduced and Ray filled them in on much of our family history.  Ray was the only other cousin who'd grown up in England, since the rest of the aunts and cousins were spread around the world.

So now I was off on a new adventure, with yet another second cousin.  Alex is a descendant of the youngest Reed sister Jessie.  In 1910, she married a Hampshire and ultimate English test cricketer, Alexander Stuart Kennedy, and a daughter Mary (Mollie) Stuart Kennedy was born in our great grandfather's house in London Rd, Southampton.  She was my dad's first cousin.

My dad, being cricket mad, had always remembered that his aunt had married a professional cricketer.

Alex Kennedy 1891-1959

In the early 1920s, with Alex Kennedy coaching and playing test cricket for England in South Africa, the family moved to Cape Town.  My dad saw his Aunt Jessie and cousin Mollie and new cousin Jean, a baby in Cape Town on his way to Australia by ship in 1925.  At that stage, Jessie and Alex's marriage was breaking up, and Mollie was later taken back to England by her father, and had nothing to do with the family back in South Africa.

Mollie marries John Palmer

Mollie later married, and young Alex and his brother were born after the second world war.  In 1962, Mollie died suddenly, having told Alex nothing about her life.  Or the boys didn't remember!  There were very few photos.

Meanwhile, Jessie had remarried in Cape Town, had three more children besides young Jean (who had been given into the custody of her father Alex Kennedy, but remained with Jessie).  They moved to Zimbabwe at some point, and their descendants are now scattered over at least three continents - Australia, Africa and Britain. 

Before I left Australia, I had sent Alex some photos that my "South African" second cousins had sent me.  One was of his mother with young Jean, obviously taken not long before she came back to England.

He was very touched by this, and we agreed to meet.  He later suggested that I come and stay with them for a couple of nights in Kent, hence his drive up to Banbury, and our drive back to Kent, where I had a wonderful time.

The Chaser Inn at Shpbourne (pronounced Chivan)

Alex and Viv live in a very small village near Sevenoaks, just 2-3 miles from Ightham where my mother's birth mother was born.

The Golding Hop at Plaxtol, Kent

We stopped on the way home at the Chaser Inn near Ightham for a very pleasant dinner, and then called in at Alex's local pub, The Golding Hop, which has one of the few remaining licences to brew their own cider.

Eddie the publican was able to tell us where the Bewley Farm was - his pub was just around the corner from Bewley Lane.

The reason I was interested in this was that Bewley Farm Ightham was the very place my great grandmother Annie Ashby, the daughter of Cornelius Palmer and Elizabeth Ashby was born.

This is really strange because my ancestor Kate Elizabeth Palmer (my birth grandmother) and Alex shared the same surname!  But no relation, since Alex's Palmer family comes from Southampton.

The Bewley farm was obviously a big piece of land, because there is a Bewley Farmhouse, a Bewley Lane and a Bewley Lane house.  No doubt, my ancestor was born in a long lost hovel on the farm.  They were poor agricultural labourers.

The following day - Monday - we set off after an early lunch for sightseeing in the rain.  But that didn't matter much because the countryside is beautiful and we saw some magnificent buildings. 

St Peters church, Ightham Kent

First we went to St Peters Church, Ightham where my Palmer and Ashby ancestors were baptised, married (if they bothered) and buried.

Nut Tree House

We stopped at Nut Tree House at Ightham.

We then had a look at Soar Manor, a remarkably well preserved knight's house from 1290.

Ightham Mote

But the highlight of our local tour was a visit to Ightham Mote, which I had thought was just a moat with some green fields.  No such thing.  It is "gobsmackingly magnificent" as I told the first guide I saw.  It is managed by the National Trust.  Here it is.

The Mote itself.

Viv and Margaret at Ightham Mote.

Those Roses in the courtyard smelt just wonderful.

We were able to see right through the house.  It was built and restored over many centuries, and was owned by an American who loved all things English.  He had never married and left the house to the nation.  It has been extensively restored and is one of the few historic houses that pays its own way through entrance fees.

After this Alex and Viv had arranged for the whole family - their son Simon, daughter Sarah and her two young sons - sports crazy Thomas (11) and William (9) to meet me over tea at the St Julian's Club at Sevenoaks.  Another very pleasant evening indeed.

This morning I slept in till 10 am!  Alex and Viv had offered to drive me down to Angmering in Sussex where I was once again staying with Linda and Peter.  (Linda is my cousin on my dad's side, and we share our maiden names.)  So after a quiet morning and a good lunch, I said goodbye to beautiful Kent and we made our way south to Sussex.

I'm sure I'll see Alex and Viv again one day - I certainly hope so.  A lovely couple.  And between us, we identified quite a few photos of Alex's mother Mollie.  

Here is one that is very precious.  The message from her mother is very poignant:  

"Be good sweet Maid
And let who will be clever,
Do noble deeds, not dream them all day long
"Mum"
With heaps of love from Mum and baby.
26-3-26."

After this, mother, baby (Jean) and sweet maid (Mollie) were separated - forever.

Ray Bayford told us the other day that Jessie, Mollie's mother visited his grandmother Alice in London sometime before her death in 1955 and he was introduced as a young boy.  Whether she saw Mollie again, we'll never know.

And now I'm able to catch up with my blog!

Poole, Highcliffe and Lymington

Joseph R. Rose's wedding 1901 - wish we knew who the other people  were.

It's now Thursday evening and I am two days behind with my blog!  I'm currently in Barnsley, in a hotel room which reminds me of one of our good motels, the first such room I've had since I left Sydney.  But this blog is still about Hampshire - and Dorset.

I first met Hannah Mack on Ancestry.com, and we've since become friends on Facebook, even though I am older than her parents.  She has a History MA, which explains why a young person is so interested in family history.  She is also a distant cousin, being a descendant of my favourite ancestor's 17th child!  I am the descendant of his 2nd child, who is 27 years older than hers.

St Michael's church where John Rose is said to have taken refuge.

Her parents live just near Poole, and they were very interested to receive a copy of my story about John Rose, and I was interested to see the photo they had of him.  They also had a very good family photo of their ancestor Joseph R. Rose who built up a stevedoring company in Southampton with 5000 employees.  It was lovely to meet them and to swap family folk-lore.  We shall prove it all one day.  They had heard that John Rose had been a gambler, and used to take refuge in the church (probably St Michael's in Southampton) whilst trying to organise a settlement of his debts.  Sounds like something he'd do.

Ange and Paul had driven me down to their village just outside Poole, so after a delightful visit with Hannah's family, we set off to have lunch at Highcliffe, which is on the south coast outside Bournemouth.  It was very wet, quite a miserable day for driving really.  But we had a delightful lunch, apart from Paul getting exceedingly wet when he found the accessible entrance to the restaurant locked.  He nearly ran over the waitress who opened the door - she did not realise she was in his way.

Lymington Harbour

The Ship Inn

Ange drove us back via Lymington, which is in the New Forest not far from Totten where they live.  It is a delightful town, famous for its sailing community.  Here are some views of the harbour and the cobbled streets.

The cobbles were no good for wheelchair users.  There was no one else around since the shops had just shut and it was very miserable with the rain.  A delightful small town though.

Shirley meets Ray in Banbury

In the pub garden at Banbury

Well, what a wonderful day.  I should think Ray and Trish would have been gob-smacked when they heard that six women were descending on Banbury, Oxfordshire to meet Shirley's and my mutual second cousin Ray.  I've always known about Ray because our respective fathers and their mothers used to correspond since my dad and his mother came to Australia in 1925.

I met the "girls" at their apartment off Oxford Street at Marble Arch (how central), and we set off, on Ray's advice to Marylebone Railway station where we caught a train to Banbury an hour and a quarter from London in Oxfordshire, north.

Arriving at Banbury by train

Ray met us at the station with his car, and the overflow followed in a taxi.  Ray and Trish had booked a table - in a private room - at a local pub, and their daughter Tracey, who has a bad bout of laryngitis (and sounds like me, except for the accent) joined us as well.  So there were nine of us altogether.

Shirley and Ray shared their memories, and it seemed that Ray's parents and aunts were very concerned about what had happened to Shirley after her mother had died of kidney failure in 1942.

Like many men, her father was not family minded and Shirley was brought up by his parents, and contact was lost with her mother's family.  So it was not until 2009 until the jigsaw was completed.

 I'm so pleased that Ray had shown me (in 2008) that photo of Shirley as a little girl.  When Shirley saw the photo she remembered her great aunt Kate, who brought up her mother Kathleen from a young age.  Kate was married to Sidney Bellenger, and all the Reed sisters called them "Steak and Kidney".

Shirley was four and a half in this photo.  She reminds me of Elizabeth's daughter Carolina who I met just last week in Orange County.

How serendipitous that Shirley and her daughters from Florida and Tennessee were in London at the same time I was!

Ray reading about John Rose 1805-1884

I gave both Shirley and Ray copies of the latest family story I've written up.  This one is about our 3 x great grand-father John Rose.  Lucky he didn't end up in Australia as a convict (he was constantly being fined and imprisoned for his political activities in the 1830s) or we would be somebody else or never would have existed.

Tomorrow I'm joining my girl cousins for a tour of the Tower of London.  After that I shall try and see the Dickens Exhibition at the London Museum.  They fly home on Saturday, and I'm off to Sussex to revisit my second cousin Linda on the other side of my dad's family.

My ancestors, my cousins and me

My great grandfather, Robert Henry Reed of Southampton.

I have an exceedingly close relationship with many of my ancestors, having spent so much time on the Internet finding out as much about their lives as I can.  I know a lot about some, and frustratingly little about others.  The more notorious they were, the more I know.  Others - especially the women - stayed well out of view, their education limited by their status in the family or their community or lack of ambition, their opportunity to hold office, to own property, pay taxes or to vote.  With few exceptions they were the working poor, surviving well enough to avoid entry to the workhouse.  If they were unfortunate enough to be born prior to 1837, they may or may not have been baptised and thus had a record of their existence.

I wonder too whether I would have liked them.  Which one of my ancestors or distant cousins would I have enjoyed spending time with? What did they look like?  It is so frustrating not to know. But at least I know where many of them lived, hence my recent visits to England.

The people I have befriended are the other drawcard.  Mostly these are cousins, although it starts to get ridiculous when your common ancestor was born in the mid-seventeen hundreds.  My dear friend Ange and I share an ancestor born in 1780.  Ange's folks have never moved from Southampton, unlike mine who moved to the other side of the world.  She and I clicked on Genes Reunited well before we met in 2008.

And then there is Linda.  Her father and mine were first cousins, and our maiden names were the same.  She is now more like a second sister.  We've spent some wonderful times together.

There is Ray, and his wife Trish - I've known about Ray since my childhood, since my dad and his father lived together when they were 10 and 12, and corresponded all their lives.  But I didn't meet him until 2003 when they visited us in Australia.  We've since met them twice.

And Olivia - she too is my second cousin.  I spent a lovely few days with Olivia, following the tracks of my errant grandfather at the family home at Godden Green near Sevenoaks in Kent, and at his place of work at Oxford University.

I hope to meet at least two more second cousins in England on this trip, one in London and another in Kent.