My last post on this blog reported on a DNA connection between my aunt, born Gillian Margaret Scott-Ritchie, and her cousins who emigrated to Canada. The genetic link confirmed that my grandfather David Scott Richie was definitely the biological son of David Scott Ritchie Sr, the slight-looking man in the photo from Hanwell Asylum published elsewhere on the blog.
This left me with a conundrum. How could I explain Grandad's aristocratic appearance? More puzzling still, who funded his education and facilitated his entry into the burgeoning computer industry?
Finally, I dared to ask the question, What if Maude, my great-grandmother, wasn't Grandad's biological mother? It would certainly explain the absence of a birth certificate. It would also account for the fact that Maude wasn't part of my mother and aunt's life growing up. Documents show that she didn't even live with my grandfather from the time he was about 7, choosing instead to have him live with her sister Emily.
Here is a possible version of events, based on what I know about the way things worked in London society at the turn of the twentieth century:
David Scott Ritchie worked as a footman for the Viscount Francis Wheler Hood and Edith Lydia Drummond Hood. He charmed a young girl of aristocratic birth who either lived at the house or came to stay. When it emerged that the girl was pregnant, her parents were appalled. However, they happened to be people of good character, so they made arrangements for the child to be taken care of. Picking another of the servants, a young, responsible woman named Maude Alice Parker, they organised a marriage between David Scott Sr and Maude Alice before the expected birth and set them up at 22 Albert Street. They even established a fund to ensure that the child would receive a proper education.
All might have gone according to plan had not David Scott Ritchie Sr suffered an attack of insanity in 1909 and been institutionalised. The fact that he was first seen at the local workhouse and lived out the rest of his life in a paupers' asylum indicates how hard up he and Maude were. Yet their son, my grandfather, left school and landed a job with an engineering company who transferred him to South Africa at the age of 28 to head up their newest branch.
I have a good feeling about this version of events. If it is true, it would explain why my grandfather never spoke about his early life. Knowing there was a secret surrounding his birth and how he came to be at a good school, he would have been obliged to keep the facts hidden.
The same goes for me if I should discover the identity of the young girl through my DNA research. The next question I have to answer is, How do I create a family tree that is private so i can continue building it with historical records without compromising anyone else's privacy?
Photo credit: Image from page 265 of"The Linzee family of Great Britain and the United States of America and the allied families of Penfold, Hood, Amory, Tilden, Hunt, Browne, Wooldridge [and] Evans".
1917,; Linzee, John William, by Internet Archive Book Images.
