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| How do some Cornish relatives vanish into thin air? |
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Page 1 of 2 I mentioned at the end of my last Cornish World article that a lot of people spend a lot of time looking for that elusive long lost relative and that it often has to be an accepted part of our research that some folk just seem to disappear off the face of the Earth with no trace. Sometimes this is as a result of a tragedy at sea, details of which are never known or as a result of some other accident or misfortune. As well as simple entries in parish burial records such as “a man found drowned”, you will also come across the odd entry like “a man, found dead on the Common”. The poor deceased may have been an itinerant worker or, like many, one who had left his wife and family to go off and seek employment in another area, fully intending to send for the family once he had a foothold in that new area. With no means of identification and no other way of knowing who the deceased was or where he had come from, the body would simply have been buried at the expense of the Parish, probably in an unmarked grave. I have a few folk who have eluded me over my years of researching other people’s families. You know they were born, got married and died but exactly where and when remains a mystery. I had one just the other day who told her family that she was born in Cornwall and later moved to the north of England where she married a man who subsequently left her and then, as far as we can tell, died. She then emigrated to America with two children of this first marriage, where she settled down, married again and raised a second family of four more children. We had clues about her name, approximate year of birth and other snippets of family names which had come out in conversations but could we find her? No we could not. Was the story about being Cornish just that, a story made up to hide a past she would rather forget? Perhaps it was, but a search of wider UK records also failed to find her birth so perhaps even the name she used was a bit of fiction, the answers and the truth died with her in the 1950’s, well before her family became curious enough to fully question the truth of the story and the small clues left to them don’t unfortunately add up to a full picture. They don’t always stay “lost souls”, sometimes they turn up in some unexpected place, just when you thought you had covered all the angles and all the possible locations. That is a very satisfying part of research and is always well received. Another very satisfying part of research is putting folk back in touch with distant family members who they did not know existed. Do you remember about a year ago now I mentioned Sammy Wroath, test pilot of pre-Second World War airplanes? I had an e-mail just a few weeks ago from someone who had just read the article, whether he picked up the old copy of Cornish World in the doctor’s waiting room or what I don’t know but he was able to give me some more information about his Uncle Sammy Wroath and I was able to put him in touch with family in New Zealand for whom I had done the original research. Sammy was apparently inspired to join the RAF after a flying boat landed in Mount’s Bay when he was a boy. Before that he had intended going to sea as a career, like so many from that part of Cornwall. Sammy eventually became chief test pilot for the new Hawker Hurricane in the 1930’s and after the Second World War continued his RAF career rising to the rank of Commandant of the Empire Test Pilot School where he remained right up to the dawning of the age of the supersonic jet fighter. His associations with flying did not end with his retirement from the RAF, he moved on to work with Rolls Royce on military jet engines and later worked for the Government of Kuwait in an advisory capacity with their air force. Strange how one small mention about a year back has now reunited family thousands of miles apart. Staying with the theme of reuniting families, what better excuse is there to get out all those old family photos and other documents than a family reunion? These don’t have to be on a grand scale but often in this day and age of instant communication over the internet and global travel, folk come from thousands of miles apart to meet and greet family members they have met through their research over a period of years. One such took place over the recent Easter weekend in Brisbane, Australia of the descendants of the Pearce and Cuttance families of Cornwall. Brisbane Sailing Squadron Club was decked out in Cornish black and gold especially for the occasion with St. Piran’s flags featuring in the table decorations. There were greetings from St. Ives MP Andrew George and a presentation on Cornwall by his cousin who lives in Australia… Quite an event. Family members from as far apart as Brazil and New Zealand attended, ranging in age from just 10 days to a sprightly 95 years. |
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