Sorry about the shortage of blog posts. Last week I was down and out with a bad cold or flu here at Struan Farm. Since I had a flu jab, let's just characterise the episode as a bad cold with some flu-like symptoms that didn't want to go away. I didn't go out of the house, and spent quite a few hours each day sleeping, for over a week. John did his best to look after an exceedingly grumpy Karen. Not exactly me! I managed to read (a bit) and needlepoint (a bit). And when I got to the end of my tether I broke down and did some research on my family history on ancestry.com.
My family history has always been a huge black hole. My mother was an only child, and my father's father died when he was three, he was effectively raised by an older brother and his wife as their son. In fact we called them "Gram and Pop" since that was the role they played in our lives.
John's family knows its history way back, thanks to his brother Carrick who spent considerable time doing the associated research. They know when Robertson and Frater/Rufford ancestors migrated to New Zealand, and where they came from before that. John has always thought it odd that I knew very little about my heritage beyond "English/Irish/Scottish." We joked that perhaps it was because of deep dark family secrets or perhaps Irish horse thieves in my lineage. Neither of my parents were particularly close to their extended families, and I've lost touch with cousins we saw rarely as a result. As noted previously, I've always been the communicator in my family, people around me just didn't talk about things all that much. And I've always wondered why, and why I was different in this respect.
So it took a weakened state with very little else to do, and perhaps the recent passing of my sister, for me to start to see what I could find out about the family skeletons rattling in the closet.
It really doesn't take much effort to obtain some information online via ancestry.com. In my case it started with learning that my father's father, Thomas J. Barrett, was buried in the same family plot at the New Vernon Presbyterian Church as my father, mother, uncle ("Pop") and aunt ("Gram"). This was complete news to me, and probably the shock that got me going. No one ever told us this, something that I find rather surprising. We weren't the kind of family that visited the graves of dead relatives, but still. This was a major piece of news. I hadn't even known my father's father's name was Thomas. He was never discussed.
Thomas and his wife Lydia had five children, all of whom I remember as aunts and uncles, some more distant than others. After Thomas' death in 1934, Lydia, whose father was Irish and mother was German, remarried someone named Wm. Davis in 1945. In the interim she and her youngest daughter Alice lived with her eldest daughter Anna and her family. (This was when my father, who was three, was whanau-ed out to his brother Ed and his wife Ruth.) We knew Lydia as "Nana Davis" in her later years when she lived with my aunt Alice and her family, but never met Mr. Davis. He remains a mystery: I wasn't able to find any real information about him at all. But I was able to track both Thomas and Lydia's parents, and Thomas' parents' parents. So my great, great, great grandparents. All of whom lived in the US. The great, great, great grandparents, Pliny and Alice Barrett, migrated from England. I was able to find numerous "Pliny Barretts" in Yorkshire, at which point I threw up my hands and conceded defeat. But it seems the Barretts were tradesmen: shoe and tool makers. It also seems that as immigrants they shared housing with extended family and other families based on census information.
On my mother's side I was able to find record of her parents' parents, my great grandparents, and great great grandparents on one side. With the except of my great grandfather Michael Kelly, and his wife Mary's mother, who were born in Ireland, everyone was born in the USA. I remember being told that my Nana Kelly was one of twelve children, but only found records of six. I also discovered that my grandparents Hugh and Mary Kelly Sweeney lived with her parents when they were first married, and that my grandfather only went through eighth grade at school. My grandfather's Scottish and Irish parents divorced, his mother remarried and had one child we knew as "Aunt Ann," but I couldn't pick up any more information on his father.
I've stopped my research. I know enough for me now. I've shared the ancestry family tree with my brother's family and my sister's oldest son so they can do with it what they will. I've been able to use my memories of the distant relatives who lived in my day to fill in some major gaps. I figured that I probably remember things that they might not know about and want to pass that on for posterity.
I do remain intrigued about the number of Pliny Barretts that existed in Yorkshire. Finding out about the Plinys may be an independent research project one day, just because. "Pliny" is a rather unusual name, I had only heard of it previously in the context of the ancient Romans "Pliny the Elder" and "Pliny the Younger." There's even a Pliny Barrett Community Fund in one area but not any background available. I'm still curious about Pliny.
The other thing I have learned through this process is that obituaries are only as reliable as the person writing them, so are not necessarily accurate in terms of family information. I found my Aunt Alice's, which made no mention of her brother's (my) living family whatsoever. We've lost touch, something that makes me ponder the real meaning of family. Perhaps that's the real reason I've suspended my efforts to grow the family tree and focus on the here and now!
Interesting. I apparently have a Pliney Barrett married to Alice in my family tree and have not been able to go back further. I can find a Pliny married to an Alice but not with the correct child to fit into my family tree. Your informationprovides me with a few hints to see if I can connect these ancestors to my tree.
Posted by: ed | 06/05/2020 at 12:19 PM