General Chat

my great uncle in a Lancaster bomber of 626 sqdn was shot down and killed over Germany, funny i never knew him, but done so much research on him, and spoke to many that did know him, i do feel that i knew him, do you find this with all the researching we do on our rellies.

1944? my dad was flying Liberators from Foggia, he was one of the lucky ones that came back.

He met up with his flight engineer, who was 10 years younger than he, a few years ago, sadly now they are both gone..
have a photo from1944 and some from their "recent" meet......

Bob

I do feel like I know some of them, RB - especially the ones where you get more of a rounded picture of their lives from birth to death or because you have an insight into an episode in their life that's been recorded somewhere. A lot of the time it's the sadder stories that seem to make them more real.

Yes, I know what you mean.
There are certain ancestors I feel I have actually known, having scrutinised their lives that much.
But isn't it great to be able to build up a good picture of their lives, put flesh on the bones as they say, rather than just collect a load of names and dates.

I find that some ancestors seem to have become 'favourites'.
One of mine is MaryAnn, born 1851, the eldest sister of my great grandad. She was the first born of 8 children, and the only surviving girl. I think she probably had a hard life - helping in the home, looking after the babies as they arrived, and constantly babysitting them as more newborns came along and took up mother's time. No sisters to help her. All that baking and cooking, especially as those 6 boys grew up, started going out to work, then came rolling home from the pub wanting more food. And ughh! think of all that washing and ironing!!
But MaryAnn struggled on and probably thought that by marrying the boy next door at the age of 17 she'd get away from it all. Not so! Two years later she's got her own child and went on to have 11 more, 4 died young. And she was a laundrymaid too, don't know where she got the strength! Little wonder she died of senile exhaustion at the age of 56!
What a life.
I'm going to find her grave one day and go and tell her that I think of her, she's not totally forgotten!!!

K