Eumundi Voice - Issue 98, 25 July 2024

DOWN MEMORY LANE

Chasing my own tale

Where do I come from? Why are my cousins so tall yet I am short? Why do I love all things French? Why are all my family excellent swimmers? Who do I look like? Were tales I heard as a child factual, family myth or fantasy?

Thanks to an ancestry research site, I am discovering hundreds of ancestors, dozens of new relatives, truths about old photos, criminal pasts and connections to historical events. Yes, I am 47% Irish. So, when using my maiden name of McCarthy at Blarney Castle we were treated like royalty. That’s where an ancestor pressed his mouth against a stone while hiding then talked his way out of execution and began the legend of ‘talking Blarney’.

Unfortunately, most Irish ancestors fled the Famine, ending up on the poverty line in the Whitechapel of Jack the Ripper. Residents intermarried locally and so ancestors on both sides lived there for a couple of generations until moving out for better lives with their numerous offspring.

Even a story of French ancestors fleeing the Revolution – which other ‘new’ relatives were also told – seems a myth, but I traced some to a remote French village around late 17th century. Maybe some nobility in my family is yet to be found.

When angry, my Nan always called Granddad Bert “Cadwallader.” Research told me this was his grandfather who did a spell in prison for stealing a bundle of old clothes. A new-found relative excitedly wrote that he lived in a stately house in Warwickshire. I revealed he was a gardener there, dismissed for stealing.

My lovely collection of Victorian and Edwardian wedding photos has been welcomed by others on the site. My photo of a Victorian lady had no name, but looking at another’s family tree, I spotted the lady in a family group. Welcome to Great-Great-Grandma Sarah. That tree’s owner and I knew each other as children in England, not realising we were related.

The site requires our DNA to begin searching and tells us the traits we inherit. I already knew that music lessons were useless for me, but acting, speaking and teaching must be innate. We cannot change what we have inherited. Fortunately, apart from poor Cadwallader, no other ‘crims’ are linked to me. Yet! As I get tips of new connections going even further back or more shared DNA, I may yet discover why one granddad had extra fingers, my father had extra toes, one daughter has a rare genetic condition where she is a mirror image inside – and why I am so short. Eileen Walder