Quote:
Originally Posted by susie123
I have recently acquired quite a few bits of family history, my dad passed things to me before he died, and my 81 year old cousin gave me quite a lot of old photos. I posted the following on the museum thread a few weeks ago.
Great story and one I have only fully undestood after seeing the letters.
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It's amazing how family history is often lost through wishing to disguise the truth from other members. (Your intuition about him having to sell for money probs but hiding the fact by spreading word that he was buying instead.) Another very typical sin swept under the carpet was the illegitimate pregnancy with disappearence of a family member or a "quick" marriage!
My mum also received 10 journals, letters and documents from a cousin which were written by her grand-father, grand-mother and the younger members of the family. They are full of amazing things - family daily house-hold accounts (item +price), letters about my Great-grandad's mining patents (including one to Lloyd-George with reply) -from these you can see he fell out with his brother who was partner in the patents.
There is a draft copy of the letter my Grandad wrote to Ribble buses in Preston applying for his first job, he eventually worked there for 50 years! Children's games and puzzles, homework and a poignant page where my Great-aunty Lucy was practising her "new" signature before she married -that was to her first husband who turned out to be a "bad'un"!
It's amazing what gets lost from one generation to the other so it's even more important to conserve and maintain these things which document the ordinary lives of our families and how they lived.
