I thought my mother's family was mainly Welsh with a dash of Cornish and Breton. Apparently I am only slightly correct. I was talking to my brother and apparently I underestimated my mother's family. My father's family have been happily settled around Crewe, the Wirral and the Northwest in general for as long as you like. My father had that clicky thing in his fingers that usually means Scandinavian ancestry and the Wirral was settled by Vikings centuries ago. My mother's family, however, have been a lot more adventurous. According to my brother, who has been researching the family tree, they were well travelled even before the start of the railways. They've popped up in Plymouth, Ipswich, St Malo, over to Dorset, back to Suffolk and all over North Wales. He says it's quite a challenge tracking them down with all the changes between the different census.
I have a theory about this, based on my own observations and the stories of my grandmother and my great aunts. I think that families travelled unreasonable distance to get away from their mothers-in-law. My great-grandfather was a sea captain. He used to be away for three years at a time, come home, move house (probably to get away from the recently moved mother-in-law who was notorious), get his wife pregnant and be off again. My father contemplated moving to the Falklands Islands (which according to Google is nearly 8000 miles) and my grandmother was a much better than a lot of my ancestry.
It wasn't just in-laws, however. It was accepted in my family that the safe minimum distance between myself and my late mother was 100 miles. Any nearer and it got vicious. She was lovely to DH but the invention of the telephone meant that 100 miles was a little on the near side for me. She never saw bear as she passed a few years before he was born. She would have indulged him shamelessly (you should have seen how she spoiled the cats!) but I wouldn't have had a lick of peace. The hard part about it is that while I can put a lot of my mental health problems directly down to her, I know that she did her best under often difficult circumstances. It makes me very aware that I can get things wrong with bear. There are times when I fail with bear and I think that I should not judge my mother too harshly. Then there are times when I talk about something that I thought was normal in my childhood and I register the shock on DH's face and realise that perhaps I need to not mention that again in front of bear. I just keep trying to keep the love going and hope it will turn out okay.
As for bear, he is much better. He's still a little croaky but he's fine in himself. I am much relieved.
Glad to read that bear is feeling better. Families are interesting, aren't they? Especially in retrospect.
ReplyDeleteMaybe your ancestors and mine met one another lol. My family goes back in Ipswich for a long time. I find the whole family history fascinating - from tales of gypsies to a woman who married her sister's husband after the sister had died.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be too hard on yourself with Bear. He sounds like a lovely young man and you're doing the best you can. We all make mistakes and look back and think we could have done things differently.
My brother is doing our family tree it is really interesting the things he turns up. I think we started in Cambridge and moved up country on my dads side. On my mums side they stayed very much around Sheffield. It is hard sometimes to understand our mothers - like you say I am sure they did their best - there is no rehearsal - I am sure I would do a lot of things differently if I had my time again. I am quite proud of my two girls and the way they have turned out despite my involvement in their upbringing LOL!
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