Reunions and Discoveries in Britain:

I just returned from a nearly two week trip to Wales and England. I went for my brothers wedding, but it also turned into an opportunity to do a little family history. I already knew we'd spend a couple of days with my Uncle Michael who has done a lot of research on his side of the family. I went armed with questions and a camera.

The first pleasant surprise is that my Dad carved time into one of our trips through Wales to look for the grave of his grand father and grand mother.

Now, my dad's cousin had previously sent us a picture of the grave. 

When we visited we saw that it was definitely in some disrepair, which we had figured out from Roy's earlier pictures.

Wendy Thomas (nee Davies), Me, Dad (Merthyn Davies.)

Wendy is my Dad's sister, and she had actually helped at Price and Annie's house when Annie passed away, but in Wales tradition said that women were not to go to the grave site for the funeral. It's a tradition still held to in some parts of Wales today. So Wendy had never seen the grave, I am glad we could take her with us. 

While there we raised one of the side stones which had collapsed and we discovered one other thing. There was one line missing from the inscription Roy sent me. This is because it was carved on the tail end of the grave and not on the headstone.

In Welsh it simply reads:

"Gwyn eu byd y rhai addfwyn."

Translated it reads as:

"Blessed are the meek."

On my last full day in England we also visited my grandparents and great grandparents graves on my mothers side.

Mum (Christine Davies), Kathleen Hobbs (Nana's cousin who grew up with her), me.

Christine Davies (nee Hilton), me, Dad (Merthyn Davies.)

A sapling has grown up between my grandparents grave and the one behind. We didn't want to remove it in case it had been planted purposefully, or in case it disturbed the earth around the two graves. This made it a little difficult to take a photograph. We took Auntie Kathleen with us, who was my Nana's cousin.

The inscription for this and my great grandparents grave can be found here.

Dad and Mum (Merthyn and Christine Davies.)

I'm glad that we visited.

Now, in between the grave visits we stayed with my Uncle. As a result of that trip I now have:

1. 14 more photographs of Nana and Grandad together.

Just one of the photographs - Grandad receiving a gift from the British
Post Office upon his retirement. Nana caught the camera and smiled.

2. 1 more photograph of grandad alone, he is playing the accordion. 

Incidentally, this means I now know we had accordion players on both sides of the family tree.

3. Pictures of Grandad's war medals. ( I will go into more details about the medals in a future post.)

4. Memorial from Grandad's funeral.

5. 4 Letters written to Nana when her eldest was born. (Since he is still alive I may not blog these transcriptions in their entirety for a while.)

6. A photograph from Victory in Japan Day.

Grandad is front row second from the right, in uniform.

7. Great Grandad Wright's National  ID card and 3 medals from WW1 and 3 from WW2

8. A newspaper article on John Hobbs (My Auntie Kathleen's father.)

9. A newspaper article on Herbert Wright. (My Great grandfather's brother.)

10. Potentially a gedcom file with all my Uncle's research. (Depends if he can figure out how to send it to me.)

11. A photograph of my great great grandmother Hannah Elizabeth Westerman.

Add caption

12. Some information about Sarah Sharratt (My 2x Great Gradmother.)

13. Some information on George Hilton (My 4x Great Grandfather.)

Of course, this is a lot of information, and considering I've hardly started blogging about all the research I discovered from my Dad's side of the family, it may be a while before you read it all here. So stay tuned, there's a long road ahead!

Family Help

Last Thursday my Uncle went to visit the grave sites of my Nanna and Granddad. While there he found an attendant who was able to find my Great Grandparents graves as well. I'm so thankful for this as I am not in England anymore and unable to visit possible sites. Another friend of mine is trying to locate the graves of my Great Great Grandparents in Binbrook, Lincolnshire. We're not positive they are there but we think they may be.

Here are the pictures.

The top half is really difficult to read but I believe it says:

"Ada Mildred Wright, Died 6th Oct 1958 Aged 64 years. 

Also

George Ernest Wright, Died 7th Jan 1962 Aged 77 years.

Reunited.

Below are the two pictures my Uncle sent of my Grandparents graves.

These say:

"May Hilton 1921-2001. 

Beloved Wife, mother and

nana"

"Ernest Hilton 1923-2003.

Beloved husband, father and grandad"

It did bring back to mind a memory of my Nanna. They have also, coincidentally, made me aware that I spell Nanna wrong but I can't break the habit of a life time.

When I was a young teenager I remember commenting to Nanna about how much work she seemed to do for other people. Nanna was the type of person who was always visiting friends who might be sick, lending a helping hand if she could. She said, "I've never understood these people who don't look after others while they're alive and then spend all their time at the graves trying to make them look pretty. You do everything you can for someone while they're here and after they are dead what more can you do?!"

Now that I'm tracing family history I would like to say that I do see the importance of keeping Graves clean and readable but I loved my Nanna's attitude, I like to think it has affected how I act today.

Nanna was a hard worker who didn't like to stop. She suffered with Leukemia for a long time and the Doctors told her she had to rest. We used to live in the same town as my grandparents and once when they came to visit Granddad said something along the lines of,

"You'll never guess what I caught her doing."

"What?" We all exclaimed!

"Trimming the hedge with a pair of scissors."

My Nanna replied somewhat sheepishly, "Well the Doctor said I couldn't use the hedge trimmer and it needed to be cut."

I hope I have inherited half of her character and work ethic. If so, I'll do well in this life and the next.