My family liked to keep secrets

I started looking into my family history after both my parents died. I am an only child so had no siblings to bulk out memories so asked what little family I had for help. I soon found that there were closed topics that no one would talk about so I tried to find out for myself. Some I have, others are going to stay closed as the folk who knew the facts are now dead.
So glad I did, I have met so many wonderful people along the road.

 

On several occasions I thought I was 'too late' to the scene to get the full facts - all the key players having passed on some time ago. Needless to say, this turned out not to be the case! Firstly, when we discovered that nobody of course remembered my forebear who'd died in 1881, but they *did* remember her mother! An ageing relative rasped out the words, oh 'that must have been Granny from Old Town' as we described the 'new' discovery in 2008. The kindly couple who live in her farmhouse still have a photo of 'Granny' on their wall... Secondly, after laboriously tracking down a smiling 1960s bride who appeared in our family photograph collection, there was no contact at all beyond her cautious reply by letter. She promised me 'all the stories' in a phone call, but explained the taxi was waiting to take her to her daughter in Italy. Years passed and I learnt she had died, somewhat prematurely. I turned over the scraps of information one more time and realised there was a chance her even older cousin Rhona (name changed) might be alive in 'north Wales'. Armed with this scanty detail, I was able to doorstep Rhona in 2011 (then 84) and finally extract full stories, photographs and even some punchy directions back on to the North Wales Expressway. Thirdly, and I think lastly, when hoping to find documentary evidence linking William Smith of a New York boomtown (emigrated 1872) with his starchy sister back in England, I again drew blanks all round. My grandmother had never heard of this great-uncle. Suddenly, at a hotel in Tunbridge Wells last year, out pops William's photograph from the handbag of a cousin, impressed with the photographer's name of that very New York boomtown.