We had a departure from our usual format this month, which worked very well. We had 4 short talks, and time for the usual social time. The first speaker was Bob Bridges with a harrowing tale of domestic abuse, suicide, attempted suicide and a trial, but also compassion and pragmatism. All worked out in the longer term, and in older age and better times we agreed Bob’s aunt looked remarkably like Bob, with make up and hat.
Next up was Dennis Cook with the life of an uncle x times removed who was a professional boxer and member of the Royal Flying Corps, forerunner of the RAF. He went on to run a pub and became a sports promoter. As usual Dennis’s research was thorough and the final unexpected twist was a picture of Charlie Chaplin and another professional boxer sending him, “their dear friend” their best wishes. Who knew Charlie Chaplin had links to Wolverhampton or enjoyed boxing!!
The final two contributions were from John Hammond. The first was a question. How likely is it we related to 14th century English royalty? If you assume a generation is 30 years then you can work out how many ancestors you would have based on two parents, for grandparents etc. Like to grains of rice on a chess board the numbers are astonishing. In fact you have more theoretical ancestors than people living in the UK at the time. Modern research using DNA and mathematical modelling confirms the answer John had when he first looked at this decades ago. We are almost certainly related to medieval royalty.
John’s second contribution was a look at the Spanish Hapsburgs family tree just before the war of Spanish Succession. The family had a history of marrying within the family so there were several cousin marriages and instances of a great grand mother also being a great aunt through a different line. All very confusing!
Next month our speaker will be Bob Bridges with a talk about his search for an ancestor. A topic we all enjoy because you never know what the outcome will be or if we have something similar in our own tree.
The May meeting should be Bernard Bowen with a talk on WW2 Royal Navy.
June meeting as yet TBA.
There will be no meeting in July, you should know by now that all our ancestors are on holiday then!!!