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View Full Version : Family folklore strikes again!


Merry
26-09-13, 06:49
I've spent much of the past week trying to reorganise the family photos - ours, mums, my aunt's, my grandparents, my parents-in-law etc all of which are now in my home and which contain hundreds of duplicates and multiple similar shots. I'm about halfway at the moment and have got through 1,200 of those sticky triangular corners whilst moving some pics around in the albums, have consolidated about 45 albums into about 15 and am probably approaching the half way mark soon. Not long before I reach the trunk of loose pictures!!

Anyway, I digress..... I came across the wedding photos for the only wedding where mum was a bridesmaid. This reminded me of the family story which was also written on the back of one of the snaps - Mum only ever had an official role at two weddings (bridesmaid and bride) and at both of them the groom's surname was Burchill, which is a fairly uncommon name. She wasn't keen on the groom when she was bridesmaid so heavily underlined on the back of the photo is written "Same spelling but No Relation!" (to mum's future husband).

As the bride at this wedding was mum's cousin she is on my tree and so I looked this morning to see what I have recorded about the groom. Turned out I only had the marriage record as I'd not been able to determine any other information. Mum had only been able to tell me she thought he was from London (not Bristol like all my dad's family) and that he was a lot older than his bride.

It's years since I looked at this part of my tree and now we have the benefit of the 1911 census and fully transcribed BMD records. It took my about five minutes to realise I have the groom's father on my tree! Turns out my paternal grandfather and the groom where mum was bridesmaid were first cousins! lol

Mum will probably be horrified (only in a jokey way!) - I hope she can remember all about it as her longer term memory is starting to follow her short term memory and is getting a bit hazy. I think she will and it will make her laugh. Gives me something to talk about when I see her later today!

ElizabethHerts
26-09-13, 07:20
Merry, what a mammoth task you are undertaking.

I'm glad you sorted out who the groom was. It will be interesting to hear about your Mum's reaction.

Thanks to WDYTYA I manage to revisit a lot of my tree fairly regularly, but it is the offshoots I don't look at very often. However, I do always look at siblings and their families, probably because I'm so nosy.

Merry
26-09-13, 07:59
Some branches of my tree I have followed so many offshoots and married-ins, I forget I'm not actually related to huge boughs!

Funnily enough I was only looking on my tree at the family that includes this groom's father last week and thought I must now see what happened to the younger children who married after the 1901 census. The groom's father is one of these - it would have been even better if I'd done the research the other way round and opened the 1911 census page only to get a surprise seeing the six year old bridegroom-to-be!

The photos are a nightmare Elizabeth! The next really bad set are the Victorian ones and the run up to WW1. About 80% of these are not in albums. I have previously tried to categorise them by family name and time period 9where I know who they are!) and so I now have about 20 carrier bags worth, wich probably 2% in the wrong bags at a guess!

Kit
04-10-13, 08:55
Enjoy the photos Merry. I don't have so many but my grandad's photos sound similar. But everytime I go back I work out another photo or at least work out that the photos contain the same set of people, even if I don't know who they are yet.