The taming of the (mathematical) Shrew

In pursuing research during 2012 I made contact with a very helpful lady in Canada who had decided to continue with her recently deceased husband’s long established research of his Westbury English family. She contacted me through Ancestry telling me she had information about my Westbury ancestor (who turned out to be my Great x 3 grandfather) which later proved immensely useful. It was wonderfully documented and even answered queries within my own research. It turned out to be one of the best contacts I had ever made through Ancestry and together we tied up many loose ends.

After a period in early 2013 with little contact she emailed and asked a favour of me. Would I consider making contact with her UK based nephew who despite being a brilliant mathematician teaching (in her words) some ‘gobbledegook’ branch of maths (I later Google'd and found it was quantum groups and lie algebra -no I don’t know either) was new to genealogy. She admitted he was the world’s biggest sceptic -likely as a result of his profession – and demanded uncontroversial proof of all and everything and was wearing her down! She asked if I could make contact, take him under my wing and guide him. If I’d known what it was to entail I would have run a mile, but of course to help someone who had given me great help, of course I agreed.

She asked me if possible to keep her name out of it (“otherwise he’ll think I put you up to it”) and said despite trying to get him to join Ancestry, he chose to join My Heritage instead and recalled I had mentioned that I too was a member. Sadly that was true at the time but not long after that I cancelled my subscription and gave it a wide berth, but at the time it enabled me to make contact.

We established email contact and within a very short space of time I found him to be arrogant; a know-all and a total disbeliever of all and everything I passed on to him. Indeed he soon told me that ‘you’re as bad as my Aunt in Canada and my uncle before her’. He went out of his way to challenge sometime for the sake of challenging, every piece of documentation that existed was wrong and even ended with him telling me the family wasn’t Westbury but Wedgebury. When I tried to explain that the name did indeed morph from one to the other –although not in all the family lines and some reverted back – he kicked it out of touch. He knew best.

Things came to a head when I told him as he knew so much in so short a time and discounted all and everything passed to him (at this point for the first time I even bit the bullet and admitted knowledge of his Aunt and of his Uncle’s brilliantly documented research) there was no earthly point in me helping him further. Then silence, no response, until perhaps a week later I got an email from him in which he climbed down and explained how his mathematical bent caused him to doubt anything that could not be proven. Genealogy he said was full of holes (true as it happens) and apologised for over reacting and was sorry if his remarks had offended me.

All this took place at the beginning of 2013 and from this point onwards over the cause of several months -in which he actually wore out footwear and visited local churches and Worcester archive centres – he mellowed. Things changed and his seeming arrogance fell away. Now with his own input and acceptance of things I said I could vouch for (backing up his Aunt’s input) we ended up being tolerable friends. We even swapped family details and I learned he had given up teaching, had moved and he was now renovating an old house in Norfolk. Towards the end he even gave me the nickname of ‘Oracle Bob’ and would begin his emails with Hi B (O) B!

Of course I passed on to his Aunt that she might now find him less objectionable, to which she replied “yes indeed he was and even spoke highly of you and your help and told me the nickname he had bestowed”.

Please note I will not let this go to my head and addressing me simply as Bob will be fine.

 

Well all I can say is well done oh wise one

 

Bless you for that and for not pointing out that for 'cause' (over the cause) it should have spelled -of course!! - 'course'. So wise one or not, Oracle or not, 'Malabobisms' are still my forté -or should that be 'fifté' by now?