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Searches Without Wax

by Val Atkinson

Article ID: 16, First Published: November 2004

In Ancient Rome some travelling potters developed a clever trick to hide bad or hurried workmanship. They would take wax and smooth it over cracks and blemishes to deceive the customer into buying what looked like a class one pot.

Of course, when these pots were filled with water or wine, they would leak, and this was bad press for the potting trade in general. Also, it was no good trying to complain because the dubious potter had moved on, to be swallowed up in the vast metropolis.

As sales slumped and livelihoods were threatened, honest talented potters got sick and tired of this sharp practice, and began to write their names on the bottom of all their new pottery along with the statement ‘SINE CERA’ (without wax).

Every time you write ‘Sincerely’ you’re putting yourself with the honest potters and making a ‘pottery statement’ that says:

� I am an honest worker

� I take time and I don’t cut corners

� I need no wax because there are no cracks

� Damaged pots are discarded

� My results are quality

� This pot will be useful when I’m long gone

� My name is my bond

Becoming known as a person with a mission statement like this is good press for our reputations.

Becoming known as a researcher like this is good press for our family histories with one proviso:

WE DON’T DISCARD DAMAGED POTS, BECAUSE ALL FAMILIES HAVE CRACKS!

Family history and information of all kinds comes to us as a pot, and we don’t know what it’s like until we try to fill it. When it leaks a little (or a lot!) we set about saving it and making it function because it’s family and not just any old dysfunctional pot.

We have a task to research and record the facts, and if that includes illegitimate births, multiple marriages, several divorces, or any similar upsetting or unsavoury happenings, we take it on board and call it ‘Family’.

On the subject of pots and their hidden agenda, always remember that most of our ancestors weren’t in the game of deliberately ‘waxing over the facts’, and that the passage of time itself has had this effect.

As the customer scrutinised each pot for the name and statement, so we should scrutinise each piece of information that comes our way until we have:

� Identified its quality

� Revealed its secrets and flaws

� Repaired its problems

� Restored its status

I once found a marriage, and I wanted the births of the couple. The groom was a dream example of quality, nil secrets, no problems and solid status.

The bride should have been a walk over with a name like Minnie Jane Charlotte ANDERSON, but though I found her everywhere her pot kept letting in water and I couldn’t establish anything to repair and restore her to the family.

Let me digress a little to make a couple of important statements:

EVERYONE WHO CAN TALK, TALKS TO THEMSELVES

PEOPLE WHO SAY THEY DON’T ARE ‘WAXY CHARACTERS’

I began to talk to myself about Minnie Jane. I said:

‘RIGHT! There’s wax in here somewhere. Her name’s not ANDERSON it’s something else.

I searched and did a variety of this and that without success, so then I said to myself:

‘RIGHT! Her name is ANDERSON. There’s definitely wax but I’ve been investigating the wrong kind.

Eventually I sorted it out to this ‘SINE CERA’ story.

� Father married Jane and Minnie Jane Charlton (not Charlotte) was born. She had two sisters (both Elizabeth) but they died.

� Jane died

� Father married Hannah and Elizabeth, Norman, Dora and Thomas were born

� Hannah died

� Father married Margaret a young widow with a child and they all appeared on a census seeming to be the children of one marriage

� Later Christopher, Mary, Lily, Francis and Ethel were born

And something very interesting had happened. I’d discovered a way to repair this waxy pot and make it ‘SINE CERA’, so pots and people aren’t always the same!

In research we have two problems emerging: The ‘definitely waxy’ and the ‘seemingly waxy’, but they both need the same treatment.

In effective research ONE SIZE FITS ALL.

The ‘Minnie’ problem was a ‘seemingly waxy’ situation, but father didn’t know I’d be researching his daughter a century later, so he never gave a thought to making my task easy.

The ‘definitely waxy’ problems are sometimes hard to handle, specially if they conceal illegitimacy/divorce/bigamy/suspicious deaths and so on, in our parents’ or grandparents’ generations.

We think of mother or grandfather and don’t want to put them in the frame that fits.

REMEMBER:

�Family facts can cause shock and distress as well as joy and rejoicing

�Families have secrets and flaws, and research reveals them

�Secrets and flaws should be documented honestly

�Dysfunctional and damaged families are part of life.

�We all have cracks

� Honesty is the best policy in research

I challenge you to always be ‘SINE CERA’ as you IDENTIFY REVEAL REPAIR AND RESTORE.