family history
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Arctic whaling: Chase, 1859
My 2 x great grandfather William Taylor CLARK (1819-1902) was a harpooner on whaling ships sailing for most of his career out of Hull, and then later from Dundee. Sadly he left no personal recollections of his life, written or in the form of stories handed down. His Seaman’s Ticket records that he was born Continue reading
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In search of great aunt Harriett
This story begins with a family photograph, dated in bold pencil 1926. Eleven men in cricket whites, aged perhaps between twenty and sixty, their smart whites only let down by – or perhaps I should say only held up by – the cords around their waists. The rug displays telltale signs of freshly whitened boots, Continue reading
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My Grandad’s war poem
My grandad – Sidney Walter JARVIS (1889-1986) – never spoke about his experiences in the First World War. Growing up in Kent Sidney was a sickly child, diagnosed as having ‘a shadow on the lung’ and – as he used to joke to us long after his ninetieth birthday – his mother was told, ‘if Continue reading
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Advice for a happy marriage
Ashsted, BirminghamJanuary 1897 Dear Children, I take the pleasure of sending you a few lines to congratulate you on your wedding and wish you much happiness … if you would be happy you must endeavour to make each other happy and this must be done by making home the happiest place in the world and Continue reading
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I’m descended from cavemen
It is said, ’tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes.’ (Christopher Bullock, The Cobler of Preston, 1716 https://archive.org/details/coblerofprestonf00bull.) But there is one more thing of which we can all be certain. Go back in time to any year in history, and each and every one of us will have ancestors alive Continue reading
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First post…
This is my first blog post. I set out on this journey intrigued as much by the experience of blogging as I am the journey of uncovering and sharing my family history. We all seem fascinated to learn about where we come from and to uncover stories about our ancestors. I still have the first Continue reading
My Ancestors 