If anyone has watched Heir Hunters on the television, they will have wondered whether there is anyone out there who might leave them an inheritance. If they have already traced their family tree and feel fairly confident about its accuracy, they will have immediately dismissed the idea and got on with their lives. But don't be in such a hurry to discount the possibility.
Not that we've ever had anyone unexpected leave us anything, but in this life there is more to be surprised about than money.
We started to think about our ancestors several years ago and have managed to discover quite a bit of information about relatives who lived as far back as the 1600s. It's a fascinating journey to make, but even more interesting when a name is unearthed that was previously unheard of.
My husband, Mick, has come across several of our own generation and we have so far met five of them. most coming to our notice through the Ancestry website's messaging board. Admittedly, some of them are quite distantly related, but they are all connected in some way and meeting them has been a pleasant and enjoyable experience.
The first was Eileen from Sunderland, a lady who had been a Reeve before she married. We were eventually able to meet her and her husband, Brian, when we travelled north to the Sunderland Air Show in July 2010.
The next to be found was Steve and his email address added a clue. It ended with ''gibtelecom'', which stands for Gibraltar. This was particularly interesting to us as we had spent quite a bit of time there when we were travelling in Europe whilst Mick was doing work experience for his Diploma in Horticulture. Mick responded to his query and soon discovered that apart, from being distantly related, we had friends in common. As a result we were invited to their Silver Wedding celebrations, which we were able to attend in November 2006
Maurice, a retired teacher, living half in Italy and half in Cambridge, came next. An avid researcher Maurice and Mick exchange emails whenever anything new crops up. They are both searching for a link which will take them back to the early 1500s. In fact, Maurice came to stay overnight with us when we enjoyed a very pleasant evening.
In 2009, Peter left a message. Living in Halifax, he had been brought up by his grandparents and turned out to be a second cousin.
All of these had been from the Reeve line. Relatives of Mick's mother, an Ivy Fenn prior to her marriage in 1944, were much more elusive. Ivy was born in Great Yarmouth and never spoke of her background so it was hard to discover anything much about her ancestors. It was believed that she was an orphan whose mother had died when she was a child and whose father and several brothers had been drowned at sea. We visited Yarmouth and its library, looking for reports that there had actually been such a disaster, but could find nothing. Official records were limited and Church records were non-existent because of floods and fire which had taken place destroying a great deal of archival information. Mick understood that his mother had been brought up by a Mrs Simms and they had in fact holidayed with her, but memories of children are often hazy and our enquiries came to nothing.
A message from someone called Liz, was, therefore, was very exciting, especially when she turned out to be a full cousin on his mother's side - the daughter of an uncle, with a brother and sister and children of her own. At the first opportunity, we drove to Yarmouth and met up with Liz and her husband, Alan. She was able to show us where she had lived, but knew nothing about Mick's mum or Mrs Simms, although she had heard about a sister called Minky who was also known to us. This name was a puzzle, but further research into birth records led us to think it must be a nickname as her age and parentage fitted with a more realistic birth name. As a result of this contact and by obtaining other certificates from the Register Office in Lowestoft, we then discovered that Mick's maternal grandfather had not died at sea at all, but had in fact remarried and was still alive at the time of his mother's marriage to Jack Reeve in 1944.
Things had quietened down over the last couple of years or so, no-one new having turned up and research had fallen off to a new low, other things having taken priority in our lives. Last Friday, therefore, came like a bolt from the blue.
As we all know, the weather has been appalling through June, and July isn't shaping up to be any better and so it was that on Thursday afternoon we had a flood warning. It wasn't imminent and we didn't think too much of it, but by lunchtime on Friday water had started to come into the lane and within half an hour it had spread to about 100yds. The Council arrived to deliver sandbags about this time and I became concerned that we might be stranded if the car was trapped behind it, so drove through a foot of water and parked it in a safe place. We lost our car in the 2007 flood and I didn't want to go through that again. By 4 o' clock, the Environment Agency had arrived with another pump and by 8 o' clock the lane was clear.
As is usual during such events, the telephone started ringing with friends and relatives enquiring if we were all right. First my sister, then our son and then Mick's sister. Whilst we are on good terms with all our families, Pam is not a regular caller, so I was surprised to hear from her, but as Mick was outside doing his King Canute bit, trying to hold the water back, I assumed she was ringing to check we were OK and told her we were fine. But that wasn't the reason for her call. "Do you know if mum worked in munitions in Derby in the war?" she asked. I said I thought it sounded familiar, but would have to ask Mick. "Why?" I asked. "Well, I've had a letter from a lady, saying her husband was adopted and has discovered his mother was an Ivy Fenn." I still don't know how she had found Pam, but as Mick is the keeper of the family archive, she had rung to get his opinion as to whether this could be the same Ivy Fenn who had married Jack Reeve. Mick was able to confirm that their mother had worked in munitions in Derby, which led to the realisation that in all likelihood a half brother is waiting in the wings to be introduced to the family.
A telephone call to Brian later that evening seems to have further confirmed the possibility and a date is now being set for a meeting.
With the water pumped away, Mick brought the car back on Friday night and, lo and behold, the water was back by 5 am on Saturday morning and the pumps were eventually brought back and worked well into the evening. Fortunately the river was on its way back down by then and we found ourselves free of it on Sunday morning. Relief for us then.
But I can't imagine how Brian feels at this moment in time. He will be 71 years old and has lived all his life with no knowledge of parentage or the possibility of blood relations. He will never know his father, but perhaps now he will come to know something of his mother and her family. Mick is the eldest of five so has nothing to lose and everything to gain in such a meeting. It perhaps also explains why his mother was so reticent about divulging her past. Perhaps she had kept knowledge of this baby from her husband. Perhaps, although she had five more children, she harboured this secret for the rest of her life, unable to share her sorrow. Who knows, but how sad if it's true.
There's no money involved, of course; we're not heirs to a fortune; and we hope it all turns out well in the end, but in the meantime we look to the future and the promise it holds for all of us.
9 July 2012
