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3D Ancestors
by Val Atkinson
Article ID: 13, First Published: November 2004FAMILY LIFE is:
A collection of real stories and anecdotes that happened to real people.
I wasn’t there to experience it, but I’ve been told that when my brother was born he turned day into night, night into day, and screamed solid 24/7.
Near where we lived there was an undertaker called Fred Costan, and his slogan was: ‘WE NEVER SLEEP’.
My great Aunt said my brother should have been called Fred Costan because he was certainly related!
After six months of this torture, my father put a single drop of whiskey in my brother’s feed, and he slept the night through, (in fact the whole family did!). From then on, day was day, night was night, and all well!
FAMILY LIFE is:
A kaleidescope of real mind pictures made into memories linked to the real people who helped make them.
My first memory is of having my photo taken at the age of six months. I can see in my mind’s eye the photographer with his large horn rimmed glasses, waving a teddy bear at me from behind a large box camera. I didn’t know it was a memory until I described the scene to my mother.
My second memory is of my sister being born when I was two, in the days when mothers had babies at home. My brother aged three and a half, continued to be a pest, so the midwife got hold of him, and put him on the top shelf of the bedroom cupboard where he had to stay until she said different! No one objected. In those days people took notice of the authority in a uniform.
GENEALOGY RESEARCH is:
A cardboard flat-pack of names, places and dates. It can stay that way if you want it to, but if you’re really dedicated you can turn that 2D flat-pack into 3D ‘Mind Pictures’ stories, anecdotes, and eventually into people.
HOW IS THIS TO BE DONE:
Well, you ask the things people don’t ask, or want to ask but never do.
Once, at the end of ‘Gone with the Wind’, when Rhett Butler had drawled his famous line, I said to whoever would listen:
‘Do you think they’ll ever get back together again?’
This is a question that turns fiction into fact and ‘flat-pack’ cut outs into real people. It was asked long before the sequel was written, but it resulted in many a discussion about the characters as if they were real people.
And so I ask you the question:
ARE YOUR ANCESTORS 2D or 3D?
Here’s a check list to help you:
• 3D ancestors have proper dates of birth. They get found on a census and no one is satisfied till c1840 becomes a birthday.
• 3D couples have a wedding day not an assumption based on lists of children.
• 3D babies who disappear from family records get searched for in parish burials and restored to their place.
• ‘3D Past’ has joys and sorrows, sweet and bitter moments, hopes and fears.
To make a 3D picture get to your old relatives before they become ancestors!
• Ask ‘QUESTIONS THAT DISCOVER’.
• Ask the ‘UN-ASKABLE’.
• Take part in ‘REMINISCENT CONVERSATIONS’.
• Play the ‘PHOTO ALBUM NAME GAME’.
• Listen with patience and lie in wait for ‘MEMORY GEMS’.
• Collect these gems and have them set into a FAMILY JEWEL.
If you have no relatives left, all isn’t lost. Do what I’ve done. If there isn’t a memory to be had, make it yourself.
BE CREATIVE.
I have no memories of most of the people I want to know better, but I don’t let this stop my desire to bring a 3D dimension to my ancestors.
In my mind I have the pictures I’ve made of them and the ‘memories’ I’ve created, which are as real to me as my living family.
I don’t sit down and have a ‘memory creating session’. I just seem to be the kind of person who has to make things ‘real’, and so ‘memories’ are created automatically, and a family with a story comes out at the end.
SAMPLE 3D MEMORY evolved from a set of 2D resources:
• Certificate for an illegitimate birth
• Baptism using a false name
• Couple of census entries):
‘LOVE IN A GLASS FACTORY’
One hundred and thirty years ago, Robert, a middle aged married man with a large family, met teenager Jane when she came to work at the local glass factory. They had a relationship lasting several years and two children, Mary and Cuthbert were born, while their father Robert continued to live with his wife.
Robert and Jane pretended to be married when their children were baptised, and once gave a false name to the vicar.
The relationship eventually floundered, and Jane married an older widower and moved out of the area with Cuthbert, while Mary Ann lived with Uncle William and his wife who had no children of their own.
Robert remained with his wife and family, and continued to work as a glass blower.
When Mary married, faithful Uncle William witnessed her wedding. She had become his daughter in every way.
BACK TO THE FACTS:
One of Mary’s children was my husband’s grandfather.
I often wonder if he screamed 24/7 for six months, and made a nuisance of himself on a regular basis!
Passionate turbulent family sagas aren’t just works of fiction.
Heart warming family dramas aren’t just Hollywood inventions.
YOUR CHALLENGE:
Bring your ancestors out of their flat packs, assemble them into the real people they were, and breathe into their ‘cardboard cut out’ existence the breath of life.
