Skeletons

One of the aspects of digging into family history is not knowing what you'll find. Things that may have been an issue a hundred yar ago is glossed over these days. Debbie decided she was going to get into the genealogy via the Roberts line. This was cutting edge stuff in 1985. No internet then, no TV ads about getting your documents, no TV shows looking into celebrity trees.

She started with my Grand Mother Alice who promptly said that the past was of no concern, only deal with the future. So that was that. She was not interested in any questions about family history. Debbie handed over all her research to my parents who have been running with it for the last 30 yar. One of the tips for budding genealogists is to get your older relos talking with a recording device in the background. I have spent two weeks sifting through old analog recordings taken in 1992 and have converted them to digital.

The below sound clip describes the scene years earlier where my Uncle Cyril was told of his true birth circumstance. It turns out that Alice had a first born out of wed lock. In those days this was an issue. So much so that the baby was disguised as a relative and given over to the already married older brother Bob Ferguson, who raised him as his own and so never disclosing the true father until an adult.  So Cyril Roberts became Cyril Ferguson and my father had one brother less than he thought until ...