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Family and Friendship Fields
by Val Atkinson
Article ID: 32, First Published: December 2005Carol Spillar, one of the co-founders of British Ancestors and Ancestor Seekers, has been my friend for over 40 years. Keith her husband was honoured to be added to the friendship list when he had the excellent sense and extremely good fortune to marry Carol.
Carol has always figured strongly in my life, through ‘thick and thin’ as they say in England, and Keith figures frequently now that he and Carol are one. He is part of my history through Carol, and both of them figure frequently in my journal entries.
Why do we think of family history as something from the 19th century or before, when the Carols and Keiths of this world are part of our scheme of things?
A while back I wrote an article called ‘DESCENDANTS SOS’, and one of the comments was: ‘Everything unrecorded is the missing piece in the family jigsaw our descendants will struggle to complete’.
I’ve struggled continually with my own ancestors over the years, so I’m not about to inflict the same pain on my descendants.
If I don’t tell them about Carol and Keith properly, they’ll go off on a wild goose chase trying to link them into my blood relatives.
What can I say about Carol, apart from the fact that as a faithful friend she has no equal?
What can I say about Keith except it was the best day’s work he did when he married Carol? He became part of a friendship network from Carol’s past, and he’s adapted quite well to having me as part of his family, though he does have his ‘off days’. Most men have the nightmare of understanding one woman, but Keith has a double load!
Once many years ago, Carol and I were walking down what is known in our town as the ‘Cemetery Cut’ because it borders the cemetery on one side.
We were chatting, then Carol said, “Val your nose needs cleaning”.
I didn’t get all indignant or feel uncomfortable; I just got my hankie out and cleaned it.
Then she said, “No, it’s the right nostril”.
I asked her to point out exactly where, and then I did the job properly.
The saying ‘Keep Your Nose Clean’, takes on a new dimension where a real friend is concerned. There is something about a true friend that is so valuable. They anticipate your pain and work to remove it. Acquaintances would just let you walk along with a messy nose, and say nothing, out of embarrassment.
Carol’s children call me Auntie Val (AV for short), and the oldest is in his thirties.
When Carol’s daughter Martha was married recently, I played the organ at the chapel. One of the guests said to Carol’s son “Who’s that on the organ?”
He said “That’s Auntie Val”.
Surely in your own family you have courtesy Aunts and Uncles who have been an important part of your life? Surely your ancestors had them as well.
I was brought up in the tradition where children didn’t call adults by their first names, so I had a host of ‘aunts’, ‘uncles’ and ‘cousins’ who were completely unrelated to me.
There was a big sense of security in having such a large and extended ‘family’.
Adult relatives were also given titles no matter what their relationship, so I still call my mother’s cousins ‘Auntie Mary’ and ‘Auntie Alice’. They would somehow lose their dignity if I said ‘Mary’ or ‘Alice’, and I wouldn’t dream of doing it.
Auntie Mary never thought she would marry after a life of ill health and scars because of a tubercular bone in her leg, but she married when she was forty, so I acquired an Uncle Fred. They never had any children, but I always send her a card on Mother’s Day.
Getting complicated isn’t it? No wonder we’re puzzled as we try to straighten out our ancestors and their relationships! We find them ‘flat’ as names on paper, and we so want to bring them into 3D.
Look at this 1881 census at Collierley Old Rows County Durham England
John TONES Head M Male 50 Easten, York, England Coalminer
Mary Ann TONES Wife M Female 56 Mountsett, Durham, England
George TONES Son U Male 19 Hartburn, Durham, England Coalminer
Mary Ann TONES Daur Female 10 Linby, Durham, England Scholar
Matthew CARR Nephew U Male 22 Mountsett, Durham, England Coalminer
Mary Ann BELL Niece U Female 19 Hobson, Durham, England
Mary Ann TONES is actually John’s grand daughter (Several years discovering this)
Matthew CARR is his wife’s sister’s illegitimate son (Three years researching him as a blood nephew of John TONES before I discovered his original name was TURNBULL then OSWALD then CARR. Hmm)
Mary Ann BELL is his wife’s other sister’s daughter (Two years of trying to make her into a TONES!)
The advantage of friends and relatives in your modern history is that they’re already 3D. They’ll never be flat cut outs needing support to stand up.
You know who they are, so don’t leave everyone else guessing.
I’ve read stories about American pioneers who, in the middle of great privation and distress, took time to plough the land and plant crops for the people who would follow after.
They made life easier for strangers who came later, but I have the feeling that the strangers who harvested those crops felt a kinship with the planters.
We can conserve the skills of our descendants for the things that matter, if we take time now to make their harvest just plain backbreaking work rather than a full scale scouting party and investigation!
In family history we are both the planters and the harvesters.
I think we place far too much emphasis on the harvest and neglect the planting.
By doing this we give our descendants the same difficult heritage our ancestors gave us.
Every time the harvest is slipping from our gathering hands, we shouldn’t waste time moaning about what our ancestors didn’t leave us, but give some thought to what we ourselves will leave, and get on with ploughing a furrow that can be seem for miles.
TRUST ME IN THIS:
• We are the planters of Family and Friendship Fields
• There is a unique harvest waiting to be gathered into your personal modern history
• Relatives can be special friends and adopted into the harvest of Friendship Fields
• You decide the ‘greenness’ of your own fields. You place each seed personally
• Let the grass be known. Each blade is yours
Family History is about making strangers into friends, and planting in the hearts of the children (Your descendants) the knowledge of their fathers (You).
Give your descendants the materials to mull over in their own way.
Let them labour to organise and gather in the promised harvest, without having first to range far and wide to discover their Family and Friendship Fields.
