The thrill of tracking down Auntie Elsie and Uncle Ted from East Ham

We don't know much about Grandma's early life, where she went to school and how she liked to spend her time. We don't even know how she met Grandad, only that they married in 1929 and moved to South Africa to raise a family. What we do know, though, was that she had a cousin named Elsie with whom she corresponded for years and of whom she was very fond.

Until yesterday, my attempts to track down Elsie had been wholly unsuccessful. Without the benefit of a maiden name or married surname, I had been forced to try other approaches: Research the siblings of my ancestors and look among their descendants for girls named Elsie, Ellen or Elizabeth. Assume that Elsie was a Wilson because Grandma's mother was a Wilson and the relationship  might not be that of first cousin. Perform a search for marriages of people named Elsie and Ted plus variations on those names. Alas, all my efforts proved fruitless. It was a brick wall in my genealogy quest and yet I felt convinced the solution was very close.

The reason for my confidence was that I knew about Auntie Elsie from my lived experience. As a child, I often heard Grandma say, "I got another letter from Auntie Elsie this week" or "I must write and tell Auntie Elsie about that." Of course, I took no notice. Being young and preoccupied with what I could grasp first-hand, I simply failed to pay attention.

More recently, I tried quizzing my aunt Gillian for anything she could tell me. She remembered that Elsie was married to Ted but had no idea whether there were any children. Her memories are so scant because she only met them once. It was on a family holiday to England, one of the five-yearly trips that happened when her father visited the London office of Hollerith. Gillian recalls that, when they visited Auntie Elsie and Uncle Ted in East Ham, they were building a bomb shelter in the front yard. She also recalls seeing barrage balloons hanging over London and the need to close all the curtains at dusk for the blackout. Coming from a context where life involved carefree expeditions up the mountain to boil potatoes in a billy-can and watching her father learn to sail, she was naturally struck by the strangeness of it all.

Such was the extent of my knowledge about Elsie and Ted. I had reached the point where my notes on the elusive couple languished in a file awaiting inspiration. Then, this past week, Ancestry made an offer I could not refuse. I had a free account, created when they were offering free access to military records a little while ago, and they saw fit to reach out to me , offering a three-month subscription for just one dollar. Unfortunately, Ancestry is hard to use with accessibility software for blind users so I won't be using it long term. However, the effort it took to build a basic family tree was well worth it because I made a startling breakthrough!

My first Ancestry hint led me to a profile for Grandma. This was unexpected because she had been an only child and I hadn't found her included on any other online family trees. Checking the details for her parents and grandparents, I satisfied myself that there was no mistake. Then I set about tracing the relationship between myself and the owner of the tree.

I hadn't been thinking about Elsie and Ted when, suddenly, I found an Elsie Ada Bristow from West Ham. The name caught my attention, as did her birth date of 1907, just two years later than Grandma's. She was married to an Edward Collins, which ticked the box for Uncle Ted. To top it all, the couple lived in East Ham in 1939, the year in which Grandma, my aunt Gillian and my mother had seen them.

What a find this is! The online family tree makes it possible for me to contact the owner and exchange information. She obviously knows more about Grandma's extended family than I do, while I know more about her children and grandchildren. This opens up a whole new line of investigation. Not only do I have a slew of new names, dates and locations to research, but I have DNA results to compare, photos to share and new ancestors to care about. So many possibilities for exploration!

Photo credit: "A man sits on a park bench in London 1940" by Christine

 

Charles Sanderson and the streets of York

In researching my maternal great-grandfather I made a surprising discovery. The family of Charles Sanderson grew up in what is now an extremely popular tourist area of York. They lived in the historic part of the city known as Micklegate, close to the River Ouse.

Charles Sanderson spent his infant years in the street known as Stonegate. The term "gate" in the name comes from the Viking word meaning "street" and the "stone" part refers to the stone laid on it by the Romans. The street itself is long and narrow, running from Petergate in the north to St Helen's Square in the south. The house in which Charles and his family lived was at the St Helen's Square end, and was likely Georgian in design, judging from the other buildings in the street. Stonegate is said to be one of the most attractive streets in York.

At age 13, Charles was living at High Jubbergate, Holy Trinity King's Court. This street's name dates back to the fourteenth century when Jewish people settled there but it was built much earlier. Although the church known as Holy Trinity King's Court no longer exists, having been demolished in 1937 to create King's Square, it was still standing on the corner of Colliergate and Shambles when Charles was a boy. Drawings done at the time clearly show the church's tower  above the chimneys and rooftops of Jubbergate.

When Charles married Emma Elsey in 1879, he stated his address as 22 Trinity Lane, St Martin's cum St Gregory, Micklegate. Trinity Lane is a small road that connects to Micklegate, the main road on the west side of the river. The house no longer exists but it has an interesting history. From the time of the 1841 to the 1871 census, it was occupied by a coach proprietor named George Walker from York. For twenty years he lived with his wife Mary and a couple of servants, and then, after Mary passed away, was assisted by his young niece, Mary Elizabeth Wilson. Interestingly, George Walker stated that he employed 5 men in his coach business. We know that Charles' occupation in 1881 was "coachman", so perhaps he started out his career working for George Walker. This would explain how his widowed mother Mary Ann Sanderson and three of his siblings came to be living at 22 Trinity Lane in 1881 after George Walker moved away or died.

Charles must have enjoyed the opportunities for travel and adventure that coaching afforded him. However, the market was shrinking. Since the arrival of the railway in York in 1840, the amount of goods being transported by coach declined sharply and many  people chose the speedier option of travelling by train. Still, coaches were familiar, convenient and possibly cheaper than rail transport. A coach journey between London and York typically took four days, stopping overnight at inns which offered accommodation to travellers and stabling for the horses. The coachman and groom would eat and drink in the local tavern and, since they brought news and stories from far afield, drew locals there as well.

Photo credit: "Stonegate, York, England, View from Great/Central Tower of York Minster." By Billy Wilson.