Thinking outside the box

It began with a communication from Australia from Debbie the granddaughter of my maternal first cousin once removed (making her a second cousin once removed). She passed on family detail and being a keen researcher herself (although in her own words, still a beginner) asked why I had not bothered with extending his (her grandfather’s) second marriage. (I should explain we both had Ancestry Public Trees so she was referring to that). I said I had been concerned with the bloodline through which she and I were connected but had noted in passing that after his divorce from his first wife Margaret he remarried a Jessica R. Boddington in 1962.

Debbie said she had researched the lady and had discovered the marriage and also her death in 2002 where she was regally styled as Jessica Rosita P.P. Cole (her second married surname). Despite this being a gift wrapped name to a Family Historian she had been totally unable to find a birth registration and asked if I could help. Of course I agreed and said I would email back the information.

I could find nothing in either FMP, Ancestry or Free BMD and tried every research trick I knew using minimal information, extending the birth years, omitting birth places; everything in fact so what was I missing? Finally after a tea break it dawned on me that the obvious answer had to be Boddington was not her maiden name. So I began again.

I will not dwell on methodology to discover a previous marriage as it will be known to most, but suffice to say I turned up the marriage of a Jessica Rosita P Parkins to a John C Boddington in 1938 and of course the missing information of Jessica Parkins’ birth in 1918 in Warwickshire.

I duly passed this on to Debbie who was quite amazed to learn Jessica had been married previously as apparently it had never been mentioned to her by her mother or UK based Aunts. She was also amazed to learn I had uncovered 3 children who might still be extant from this marriage. I said and perhaps it explains that the additional ‘P’ in her death registration, likely stood for Parkins!

 

Over the years, I have found our relatives were not keen to divulge any information that could be seen as a skeleton in the closet, makes for interesting searching though.

 

Umm. There is a skeleton in the closet of a deceased relative that my mother told me about on condition I don't tell his son. I understand why she feels this way, but... All I can do, I feel, is extract all the info available in case I ever feel able to tell him.

 

Skeletons can be something of a minefield and there are some things (eg discovering someone has a minor criminal record) which may be better kept to yourself. But I feel everyone has the right to know, if they wish, and when they reach an appropriate age, who they are and where they come from.

Also, finding out there is a skeleton in your family closet is one thing - discovering that "everyone else" in the family already knew and didn't tell you makes it far worse.

 

How true. My wife found out that her late mother was adopted (and illegitimate) when a relative let it slip. The relative did not realise we didn't know. Even her father knew and never spoke of it and her brother doesn't want to know about it.

 

Skeletons in the family closet can cause family feuds that last for years, even from one generation to the next. I feel it's more important to try and understand why our ancestors acted as they did, and from that try and heal the rifts. Not everyone wants to forgive and forget, but that shouldn't stop us trying.

 

As a child I used to ask my mother who the little old lady was -we called her Aunt Eva - who we often saw when we visited Grandma Spiers. I was told she was a friend of my Grans and of my Aunt Stella (my Dad's sister) and when I questioned further was always fobbed off.

Advance now to age 25 and having just lost my mother at the young age of 57 (she had been an invalid most of her life) and asking the older of my two sisters if she knew why Aunt Stella had not stopped for the reception (or wake). She said it was probably to do with not being real family? I asked her 'what on earth' (there's that saying again) she meant when she confided it was something Mom had told her in confidence. "Aunt Eva was Stella's real mother; she had her out of wedlock and Grandma Spiers took her in as a baby". Mom told her to bide her time telling her brother (me of course) as he will want to know all the ins and outs of the matter; and not let on to her father that she had told her.

It was years before I knew the whole picture and found Stella had been adopted into the family. I then discovered that Stella's two children Ann & John -always considered our cousins and, genealogy aside, still are - were also kept in the dark. John told me that he only found out aged 18 when completing a questionnaire to join the Post Office. He was asked to name his grandparents and was told by his other Gran (his Dad's mother) to name Eva Spiller as his grandmother and not Mary Spiers. He was to leave the grandfather section blank!

Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to deceive!

 

I risk getting into a tangle in discussing it without revealing what the skeleton is. As you indicate, a lot depends on what the issue is. In this case I know my mother would never mention it to my 'cousin' (let's call him), and I do understand why (i.e. not ridiculously outdated notions of what is shameful) . She only knows it because her father (my GF) let something slip shortly before he died, so she doesn't know much anyway. It is possible that my 'uncle' did speak up and my 'cousin' knows already.
It doesn't affect who my 'cousin' is, or where he comes from, as Pauline has pinpointed it - just brings no credit to my 'uncle'. (I read[on this forum I think] about discovering the relative who was convicted of treason in a rather unhappy, unedifying case - I am not sure I would rush to tell his children if they didn't know.)

On a more historical note, I was not at all disconcerted to find that one of my GGFs was illegitimate, but another of his descendants does seem to mind. I don't feel any shame lingers after 150 years but you can never take for granted how other people feel.

 

The trouble with being long in the tooth (aka old) and many years down the road since I first started researching family history, stories that people post in the Forum bring back memories of stories of my own and those of other people. This particular topic is one such so here is the story of a family skeleton to beat all (hopefully there are few worse).

Thankfully it was only very (very) loosely connected to my own family line and discovered in communication with a fellow researcher where our paths happened to cross. I wrote about it over a year ago in this Forum and this hopefully is the link for you to find it; Holly Bush Affair

I think the story says it all

 

During my research I had found that my GGF was illegitimate and while I do not have any problems with this other people also descended from him I had corresponded with went to great trouble trying to avoid the possibility and one has even stopped corresponding with me since I provided the "proof" that lead to the discovery.
Such is life!!!

 

What is the matter with these people?

 

I've experienced the same thing, a 2nd cousin made contact, I had never heard of him before, when he found out that some were illegitimate, he certainly wouldn't accept it, no matter what the records said.
I haven't heard from him since.!!

 

I even had a case where a relative went to some trouble to contrive false evidence to hide an illegitimate birth.

 

Perhaps "misleading" would be a better word than "false". This occurred before the 100th anniversary of the person's birth. The original birth record here in Victoria, Australia is not in the public domain until the deceased turns 100. Meanwhile the NOK can get an amended "adoption" birth certificate which shows only the adoptive parents and little else. The deceased's spouse happily provided this. He also had grave markers made for several deceased people that reflected what he wanted people to believe. He apparently thought that myself and others would be satisfied with this and not bother to look at the original birth record when it became available.

 

It seems he thought he was protecting his wife's honour.

 

In my husband's family there was a conspiracy to hide the second family of his great grandfather. The mother of these children was his "housekeeper" and, apparently were well known but not acknowledged by the "legitimate" offspring and their children (their ages overlapped). I have only recently been contacted by the grandson of the second family and he is quite comfortable with the fact that his grandparents were not married though his sisters aren't. My husband's aunt remembers visiting her grandfather and his housekeeper and she said that there always semed to be a lot of children in the household.