You never know the ways in which genealogical research will enrich your life

A photograph of our grandfather turned up in December last year— stirring some excitement. Despite my intention to write about it immediately, though, I got involved with other things and let it wait. Then, when my husband and I travelled to England recently to visit our daughter Tammy, I expected to do some genealogical research on the ground, but it happened to be during the heatwave in July. Not a good time for driving from one county to another and pouring over microfiche machines to locate copies of original documents!

Luckily, there is no pressure to update the blog or track down records. The records I would have been looking for had nothing to do with my application for UK citizenship. I'm happy to say that good progress has been made in that regard. All the effort I have put in over the years to source evidence of our English roots has at last paid off.

I will never regret the fact that the process of proving that Grandad was born in England took so long because it got me started on this family history journey. It is a journey I wouldn't previously have attempted but it has yielded enormous pleasure. Travel has taken on new meaning since I began taking note of where my ancestors came from. Whereas places like York and Ipswich never meant anything to me before, their names now ring with significance as I recall what I have unearthed about my great-great-grandparents on my mother's side. My taste in reading, too, has changed; I never used to be much interested in historical fiction but now I relish the chance to read about characters living in England during the 1800s and early 1900s, especially when authors have taken the trouble to research the socio-economic conditions of the day and describe the landscape in a way that conjures up its very smells and sounds.

The photo in this blog post depicts Grandad with his mother Maude. I know this because of the names scribbled on the back in pencil, but I'm not entirely sure who scribbled the names and whether they are even correct. All I know is that the photograph was in a tiny silver frame from my mother's collection of tiny framed family photographs. Mom, it must be said, was known to have put artificial flowers in pots and collected pictures of strangers to achieve a cottage look in her home, so nothing is guaranteed. Yet there seems to be a resemblance between the woman in this photograph and the other pictures we have of Maude, and the little boy in the sailor outfit could very easily be David, aged somewhere around four years old. If that is the case, the picture dates back to about 1906.

As I write this, I realise how far behind I have fallen in recording what I have learnt in the past few months. Hopefully, I will find time to remedy that soon. If anyone has found this blog interesting and can contribute any information to my ancestor search, please do get in touch.

Finding Maude Alice Ritchie on the 1939 Register

Documents never cease to amaze me. The 1939 Identity Register taken at the end of September, just weeks after Britain declared war on Germany, is a veritable goldmine of family information, which is why I was so glad when Judy Lester did what I could not and traced Maude Alice Ritchie in that record.

To put this in context, Maude had been separated from her husband David Scott Ritchie Sr since 1909. Her son David, my grandfather, had been cared for by his aunt and uncle, the Smiths, so that she could work. She had been occupied as a cook in domestic service since at least 1911, the year of the census, and possibly many years before that. The First World War had taken place during her late thirties, and she had said goodbye to her son and his wife when they moved to Cape Town, around her 50th birthday. The outbreak of the Second World War and the 1939 Register happened when she was 60.

Thanks to the Register, I now know that Maude was living in a multi-occupancy house at 167 Fernhead Road, Paddington in the first month of the war. From descriptions of Fernhead Road on the internet [bearing in mind I can't read a map[, I gather it runs from Harrow Road in what was then North Paddington through Shirland Road and Fordingley Road. Tall 19th-century houses characterise the area's architecture, nowadays mostly converted into flats. The area is now called Maida Hill and there is a daily market held in the piazza at the intersection between Harrow and Fernhead Roads. Incidentally, the house at number 91 Fernhead Road was the childhood home of the British comedian Norman Wisdom, although he would have been 24 when the register was taken and probably living elsewhere by then.

Maude's neighbours were middle-aged and elderly folk like herself. William and Emily Burge were in their late fifties, he a master builder and she doing "unpaid domestic duties" at home. Edward and Beatrice Winyard were in their late forties, he a porter at a medical institution and she a housewife involved in the preparation of food. The Taylors were a widow and her son, Sarah aged 77 and Stuart aged 39. Stuart was unmarried and a shopkeeper at a grocery store. Maude had no-one living with her and was temporarily without a job. Her entry on the register relating to occupation says "Cook when employed".

This, then, is where my grandfather and his family would have visited her when they travelled from Cape Town to England in the summer of 1939. It is hard to picture my mother at age 4 ascending the stairs of this house full of strangers. I know nothing about Maude's personality, whether she would have hugged the children warmly or maintained a rigid pose befitting of a servant in a well-to-do household. Was she jolly or strict, fond of little ones or disapproving of their playfulness? All I know is that Mom never spoke of her. If Maude encouraged visits to her flat, she certainly didn't make a big impression on her granddaughters.

Photo credit: "Squirrel, Maida Hill, W9: by Ewan Munro.

A key Paddington address in my grandfather's story

The statuary declaration that states my grandfather's date of birth was signed by his mother, Maude Alice Ritchie, when David was 16 years old. We are now fairly sure that the given date of 31 March 1902 is incorrect, but the address is probably the one where Maude and her husband David Scott Ritchie Sr lived in that year. The address is 22 Albert Street, Paddington.

You may remember me saying in a previous blog post that I didn't find this address when I visited London recently with my husband and daughter. My sister had identified it on a satellite map as the first in a row of Victorian terrace houses which is now a national heritage site but there was some confusion when it came to locating it on a different map. I told myself it didn't matter. There would be time enough to visit Albert Street on another trip. Nevertheless, it was disappointing not to have a sense of the place, a physical context to which I could pin the information.

Than I received the report I had ordered from Judy Lester of Kerrywood Research. She had turned up the 1901 census record for the Albert Street house. This was a record I had tried hard to find when I was putting together a timeline for Maude's life. Where I had failed, Judy succeeded, and the image and transcript she provided confirmed that number 22 was a multi-family dwelling with rooms to rent.

I should mention that Maude and David were already living there on 20 February 1902 when they got married. This is known because both their addresses are written on their marriage certificate. To my mind, this reinforces the theory that David Scott Ritchie Jr had already been born, otherwise their given addresses on the marriage certificate would probably have been different. Be that as it may, my grandfather did live here for a time, and the 1901 census provides insight into his immediate environment.

The house could accommodate 2 families, presumably one upstairs and one downstairs. In 1901 there was a small family called ling [or Long] from Suffolk and a larger family called Dawkins from Kent. Frederick Ling was a contractor's clerk, and he lived with his wife Rachel and sister Mabel. They were all under 35. Valentine and Sarah Dawkins, on the other hand, were in their forties and had 5 children, comprising 4 boys and a girl. Valentine and his two older sons were farriers, his younger son and 10-year-old daughter were scholars, and his youngest son, Francis, was 5 years old.

I suppose, if I may be permitted some creative licence, that Maude and David, along with their infant son, took the place of the Ling family on the upper floor. Maude stayed home to care for the baby while David went to Chesterfield Street to continue working as a footman for the Viscount Francis Hood. Perhaps Sarah from downstairs took the baby from time to time, and perhaps her daughter Dorothy came upstairs to entertain him. But, overall, it would have been a tough time, with David working long hours and Maude feeling shunned by relatives and friends for having a child out of wedlock.

As other documents will show, the family did not survive the pressure. Everything would fall apart by the time David started school. But were the couple happy for a while, at least? Did David get taken to the park on weekends and to the beach for holidays? Or was his love of travel the result of an overly confined childhood, where he was kept out of sight in order to avoid public scrutiny? That's what makes this whole investigation so fascinating.

Image Description - Vintage Victorian style chair engraving. Original from the British Library. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel

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Geographical gaps and genealogy guesswork

Paddington wasn't the pretty, upmarket neighbourhood I had envisaged when planning my trip to London. Somehow I had merged my impressions of the old Victorian tube station with those of paddington Bear and come up with a picture of bright windows and cosy interiors. What I found was a bleak area crouching under a leaden sky, foul-smelling gutters and lots of traffic noise.

What was more, we were coming to a location that was extremely significant in terms of my genealogical research but for which I had very few addresses.

Here's what I knew about Paddington:

First, Maude Alice Parker and David Scott Ritchie had been living here at the time of their wedding in February 1902. In particular, they had been living in Albert Street. However, my husband and daughter had struggled to find an Albert Street address that seemed to fit the facts. So we could not visit the place where David and Maude had first lived as a married couple.

Second, their marriage had happened in Paddington. But I had forgotten to write down any details. My daughter had said something about a registry office, I thought, but none of us could be sure. So visiting the location where the couple signed the marriage register was out of the question too.

Third, my grandfather David Scott Ritchie had been born at Paddington Green, but that could either refer to the Paddington Green Children's Hospital or the general vicinity of Paddington Green. The fact that we had not yet found a birth certificate could suggest that David had been born at home and his birth not registered at all—except that, as I said elsewhere, Maude came from a family where such events were scrupulously recorded. Whether or not David was born at the hospital, though, that building still stands. it is now a health centre offering daytime consultations and its interior has no doubt been significantly modernised. nevertheless, the inscription that identifies it as once having been the Children's Hospital can be clearly seen.

The entrance to the building is directly opposite an entrance to Paddington Green, the park, so we paused there to take photographs. If my grandfather was indeed born there at the end of march 1902, I reflected, the weather in London would not have been very different from today. Perhaps it would have been a bit sunnier and the grass would have sprouted clumps of cheerful daffodils, but the wind would still have plucked at David Scott Ritchie Sr's coat as he turned into the gate

and hurried up the steps.

Of all the images that stayed with me after we left Paddington Green, this is the one that remains. A young father going to see his wife and newborn baby. Feelings of excitement mingled with guilt at having made her pregnant before they were married. Anxiety about whom he might meet in the maternity ward and what he should say to them. Worry about whether this inauspicious start would lay a burden on the child and what, if anything, he could do to make that burden lighter.

Walking in my great-grandmother's footsteps

A recent trip to England to see our daughter gave my husband and I an opportunity to look up some addresses that feature in the narrative of my grandfather's mother, Maude Alice Parker nee Ritchie. I had collated the addresses into a list from census records and other documentation. Google then assisted in the plotting of the points on a map and coming up with a route to link them all. This post is about the route we took, while future posts will detail the events which took place at each location.

Our starting point was Piccadilly Circus where we were staying. We boarded a tube for Marylebone Station and rose to street level via a couple of very long escalators. I believe Marylebone Station is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, underground train station in London, although this would only apply to the upper platform since deep-level tunnelling came later. It's hard to imagine what the old station would have looked like in the late 1800's, given the crowds of sneakered tourists and suited businessmen, not to mention electric cars, vans and double-decker buses that populate the area today.

Following the satellite navigation, we made our way to Huntsworth Mews where Maude lived as a little girl. Not much of the facade remains now but the secluded, paved road is just the same as it was.

Next we walked to Broadley Street, formerly Earl Street, where Maude lived in her early teens. The street is now an attractive residential road, although I have a sense that it comprised much less salubrious accommodation at the end of the 19th century. It has nice wide pavements now and the houses are set back a little from the street, suggesting that the upgrading of the area may have included some demolition of small cottages.

Our walk took us through a busy and very noisy part of town to what used to be the Paddington Green Children's Hospital. It is now a care centre but the red brick gate-posts and facade are reminiscent of times past. This was where my grandfather was born. Directly opposite the gates of the old hospital is Paddington Green itself, a fenced park with very wintry-looking trees. No doubt Maude would have known it well.

Heading into Westminster, we found Brown Street, the address given by Maude on her statutory declaration of David's birth. That was in 1918 when my grandfather was 16. Standing on the corner, I caught a snatch of conversation between two young men in suits and gleaned from their discussion about finance that they were probably in the banking sector.

By this time, it was mid-afternoon. Catching a bus, we emerged at Knightsbridge where some of London's most expensive property is located. After admiring the beautiful facades of buildings occupied by property brokers, accountants and lawyers in Curzon Street, we reached Mayfair and Chesterfield Street. This is another very impressive road, much quieter than Curzon Street and thick with blue signs identifying the addresses of historical notaries such as author Somerset Maugham, prime minister Anthony Eden and fashion leader Beau Brummell. Right in the middle of all this fame and fortune lived the Viscount Hood at the residence which now houses the High Commission of the Bahamas. It was here that Maude worked in 1901 as a kitchen maid and met the man who was to become her husband.

Staying amongst the rich and famous, we made our way across Green Park to St James Square. Our route took us along the mall and the area where the Queen's horses are stabled. There was a convoy of motorcycles ahead of us which could have been escorting an important official but it wasn't likely to have been any of the royals as they are currently in Sandringham, to the best of our knowledge. Anyway, we finally reached St James Square and the address where Maude was working in 1911. It is now the London headquarters of the Rolex Watch Company.

With the sun sinking fast and the temperature dropping, we hurried through St James Park back to Piccadilly Circus. Two things stood out to me from the afternoon's long ramble: Firstly, that what was for us just a tiny part of the city was, in Maude's day, quite a substantial portion of it. And secondly, that the 1939-1945 war must have wrought extensive damage in the streets through which we'd passed although I detected nothing but neatness and order.

Starting with a single historical document

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.