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.

The long-awaited photographs of David Ritchie Sr

The medical casebook from hanwell includes 2 photographs of the man who was ostensibly my great-grandfather. i say "ostensibly" because this post will show why there is doubt in that regard. It took me a while to get permission to publish the pictures as they are owned by West London Mental Health Trust, but once I had provided all the information they needed, they kindly said I could go ahead.

Being visually impaired and unable to see and comment on the photos myself, I include here the comments of a few family members:

well Lee, the face has absolutely no resemblance to Grandad, not even a slight bit. The plot thickens me thinks. #Fakefather Lee I have had a look at the picture and it does not resemble Grandad in any way. The whole make-up of the face and ears are so different. The nose and the ears and face more elongated. He is very different to Grandad. Seems like a small man with much slighter features, dark eyes and sloping shoulders, dark hair which could even be a redhead. Also the nose. The nose is not strong, and to me that royal looking nose is quite important. Looking at photos of a younger Grandad, his nose is quite recognisable and has been passed down through to us.

This brings me back to wondering whether this David Scott Ritchie was my grandfather's biological father. From the comments of my family members, it is obvious that they have serious doubts. I've tended to be more cautious because the alternative [that he was the illegitimate son of a gentleman] is too complicated to deal with on a number of levels. Yet I can't ignore the fact that this man married my great-grandmother Maude 6 weeks before Grandad was born. That's why I'm going the DNA route, hoping that the nature of the connection can be established once and for all.

Photo credit: London Metropolitan Archives, City of London. Hanwell Asylum [later Saint Bernard's Hospital] Collection. Item number: H11/HLL/B/20/037,