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Square Pegs In Round Holes

by Val Atkinson

Article ID: 28, First Published: July 2005

Let me tell you about the time I moved to a new house, and the cutlery drawer in the kitchen was much smaller than the one I’d been used to.

This drawer caused me a massive amount of grief because it wouldn’t take all my knives and forks. They were piled in a messy crush that really irritated me, and though I tried all ways to make that drawer accept everything I had, it remained totally dysfunctional. There I was with a cutlery drawer, and cutlery that had every right to be there, but couldn’t be accommodated!

(‘Clogged up’ is the NE of England expression that comes to mind)

I struggled for quite some time with this knotty problem trying to force the cutlery to obey my desire for it to live in that drawer, until eventually I said to myself one day:
‘Why am I struggling with this? I only need four sets on a regular basis. Apart from that, what does it matter where cutlery is kept? It won’t lose its identity because it’s elsewhere’.

This was a very ‘freeing’ concept. I put the spare knives and forks into a couple of old cups in the cupboard, and got them out every time I had company.
IT WAS A CASE OF HAVING TO ADAPT.

Some family history is round pegs in round holes, and I’m so thankful for the times when ‘round’ has matched ‘round’.

• Marriages are just at the right place and the right time
• Births follow in orderly sequence, bounded by tidy censuses
• Deaths are at three score years and ten
• Gravestones are scattered far and wide giving family relationships to the ‘nth’ degree.

Let me tell you about a square research peg in a round family hole, a knotty problem that has never gone away.

EDWARD WAS BORN IN 1891 AND DAISY IN 1892

• They were very young parents.
• I found their child baptised 18 Sept 1909 in the local church, then his burial three months later
• I located young Edward’s 3 Sept 1909 birth certificate, learned his mother’s maiden name, and began the search for the marriage.
• This would be a very short search because she was only aged 17 when he was born
• I searched the marriage banns at the local church and found them read for 9/16/23 May 1909, but there was no note in the margin to say Edward and Daisy had actually married, and there was nothing in the registers.
• I located Daisy COLLEDGE’S death in 1938 aged 46 and found her gravestone where she was listed as beloved wife of Edward. He was later buried with her.
• I began a labour of love to locate the marriage of Edward and beloved wife Daisy, starting 1909.
• They married on April 4th 1931. He was a 41 year old bachelor and she was a 39 year old spinster.
• There was no father listed for Daisy on the marriage certificate
• I have never found the birth of beloved wife Daisy, but I still come back to her and try again

WHAT IS THE MORAL OF THIS TALE?

Well, there are several, but they all lead to the same answer

• If your research is a full canteen of cutlery don’t frustrate yourself trying to squash it into two small drawers
• If your research is a square peg, avoid causing it pain by forcing it into a round hole
• If your research has behaviour problems give it the TLC you’d lavish on your family’s hormonal teenagers
• Dysfunctional family history can’t be made to function by a seriously frazzled researcher
• Accept your share of illegitimate births and non existent marriages
• Count yourself lucky if you never have to contend with desertion, bigamy, or worse

WHAT IS THE ORDER OF THE DAY?

BE CALM
BE REALISTIC
BE PERSEVERING
ASK FOR HELP

Does anyone recognise Edward and Daisy? Can you help?