In the beginning of our family history journey, it was my sister who took the lead. She had all the documents that had been in my mother's home when she passed away. My sister said she would collate the documents needed for the UK citizenship application if I would take care of the forms, so I willingly left the matter in her hands.
That was when we realised there was no actual birth certificate to be found. What we had instead was a statutory declaration made at the Police Court in Marylebone within the Metropolitan District. The declaration, signed by Maude Alice Ritchie, stated that she was the mother of David Scott Ritchie who had been born on 31 March 1902 in the Paddington Green Children's Hospital in London. The statement, dated 1918, also gave the addresses at which she had been living at the time of his birth and her present address.
It was this all-important piece of paper, then, that gave us a starting-point. I dread to think what we would have done if it had not been in my mother's file. With Mom gone and my aunt in her late eighties with a sketchy memory for details, we might have been sitting with a first name for David's mother and nothing else. As it was, the information given to us was thin, but it was enough to go on.
Caring for old family records is vitally important, although it is not something that is taught at school or even modelled much in our society. Here in South Africa, we have such a short history of record-keeping that everything, if lost, can be reapplied for from the Department of Home Affairs, bank, hospital or school, or so it seems. Then again, I've never had to apply for a 100-year-old document before. Chances are it would be even harder here than in Britain. Whatever the case, though, the moral of the story is that family documents are valuable and should be treated as such. One never knows when a descendant will need a vital record to open doors of opportunity or research a hitherto-unsuspected hereditary trait.
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