Genealogy Chat

I was at my mother in laws house yesterday having a look round as she will shortly be moving into sheltered housing and came across a small old fashioned suitcase on the top of a wardrobe .Couldn't resist a quick peek. It was stuffed with photo's letters and documents from about 1880! Its an absolute goldmine of family history. Will have to sort it and go through everything with her to identify it all. She had gorgotten she had it. Just goes to show its worth have a poke rouind somwtimes.

Andy

Oh, how I envy you!!!

Me to !!!!!!!!!!

WOW :-)

That is brilliant! I wish I could find something like that!!!!

Found something similar last year in my aunt's when clearing out after her death.

She even had the receipts for her fathers funeral in there.

Like me she could throw nothing away!!

Case had been forensicly searched and all papers put back, and now stored with all my other treasures. :-)

My first job was working for The Salvation Army, about 25 years ago. One of the tasks was sorting through deceased estates that had been donated. Most of the items were old clothes, smelling heavily of moth balls. The thing that always saddened and surprised me was the amount of personal items, photographs, letters, birth death and marriage certificates, diaries, family bibles, often with family histories written in them. I was told by my supervisors that this was all rubbish and to throw them in the bin. HEARTBREAKING! I'd spend my lunch and tea breaks reading the various pieces and trying to get the other workers interested. I was considered a bit of a weirdo I'm afraid. I did manage to smuggle out a fair bit of what I couldn't bear to throw away, I'm pleased to say. Years later when I became a member of a few genealogy centres and joined Ancestry.com it became a hobby of mine to find living relatives, and I was able to reunite my treasures and people were always so happy I'd made the effort. Just in the past month I was able to find the great-great-nephew of a man who been killed in WW1. All the letters and diaries had been kept by his sister. After she and her husband died all her things were stuffed into garbage bags and given to the salvos. Ah well.

Rescued the case today for a good look. Will keep me quiet for ages.
Also found a 1890's servant trunk with owners initials on the side and another small cupboard full of paperwork...haven't checked this yet, but could see several birth/marriage certs....

Where to start??

Andy

You are so lucky Andrew :-) Put everything in boxes and take it home with you to go through/copy at your leisure. Copies of the photos might be beneficial to your mother in law if she should start to live in the past. The trouble we had trying to find a copy of 'Granny with the white cat'!!

Please don't do as I did when clearing my parents house - put 2 lots of Victorian photos (his and hers) in one box to save space. Now of course, there is no one living to identify them. :-0

a few years ago when my when my father in law died.....i found loads of old photos of his grandparents .... taken in 1911
2 years ago i started doing the family tree ..when the 1911 cense came out so did the photo ive now named them for future years and my kids ....or even grand kids ..... :-D

Final tally from this hoard.....

Over 100 BMD certs.
100's of photo's, large number with details written on back
Burial records over 5 generations, grave references and funeral accounts
Some legal/ insurance documents
Hand written family records/diaries

and lots more.

To say it was a goldmine simply doesn't do it justice. Will keep me going for sometime yet.

Andy

Where's the green with envy avatar? :-)