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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: KPM on Tuesday 14 August 07 20:54 BST (UK)

Title: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: KPM on Tuesday 14 August 07 20:54 BST (UK)

Hi

Last week, after many years of researching my mum's family, I finally managed to visit the cemetery where many of her family were buried.

After searching for a while, I found a headstone for one particular branch of the family I'd been working on for years.  It was very old but fortunately the inscription was very clear.

The feeling I had when I finally found them was unreal ;D  I can't really explain how I felt but I had to keeping touching the headstone and it took me ages before I could walk away.  I really felt I had finally connected with these long dead relatives.  I was all warm and peaceful inside!! 

My hubby keeps giving me those understanding looks each time I talk about it  (I don't think he's forgiven me for getting him to dig up a half buried headstone yet  ;D ;D)

I'm just wandering whether after all these years of research I've finally lost the plot or whether anyone else has experienced anything similar. 

Anne-Marie

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: scottcharles on Tuesday 14 August 07 22:05 BST (UK)

I definitely know what you mean, I don't have words for it, but it's a great feeling of connection. To finally have something "concrete" (no pun intended) to connect you to your ancestors really evokes some weird emotions.

I think it's just transforming them from scraps of paper next to the computer with names and dates on to somebody who once lived and was finally laid to rest where you stand at that particular moment in time...

It's like being able to cross paths with them.

Thanks for sharing :)

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: aspin on Tuesday 14 August 07 22:17 BST (UK)

I had this feeling when a new  relative told me that a head stone existed for some of my family as its not far away I went back the next week with a note pad to write everything down

This same new relative went visiting Sprunton Bridge where our grt grt grandfather was killed after I sent her a copy of his death and the coroners report .She posted me some lovely photo's of this famous bridge

I have yet to go to Sprunton bridge but I will some day
Elizabeth

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: KPM on Tuesday 14 August 07 22:25 BST (UK)

Hi Scott and Elizabeth

Thanks for your posts - I'm glad I'm not alone :)

I think all the time they're just names, they're not really real - especially further down the tree when you'll not even find a photograph.  I just kept thinking as I stood by the grave that their mothers/fathers/brothers/sisters probably stood in the same place as me all those years ago.

It's an experience I'd recommend :)

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: KPM on Tuesday 14 August 07 22:26 BST (UK)

Hi Agnes

I'm really happy for you - its a great feeling

Anne-Marie

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: Canuc on Tuesday 14 August 07 23:02 BST (UK)

I have a photograph of a Gt Aunt taken in Singapore at Plot 12, Row C, Grave 20, Karanji Military Cemetery, the grave of one Aircraftsman 1st Class William Murphy Hetherington (1266649) died Jan 20, 1942, her younger brother. The look on her face tells it all. Three brothers; the eldest my Grandfather, the second killed on active service and buried at sea Dec 25th 1915 and a third she travelled a long way to visit.

There are links alright, even if people do think we are loopy.

Happy hunting
Canuc

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: scottcharles on Tuesday 14 August 07 23:14 BST (UK)

Buried on Christmas day, how sad :(

I'm almost tempted to say that you're lucky to have that photograph though, those are things that I have a real lack of! I would love to know what my grandfather looked like, my dad had a photo of him (he died when dad was 3 months old) but it was stolen when his house was broken into many years ago...

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: Lady Di on Wednesday 15 August 07 13:31 BST (UK)

Ohhh I just know that strange wonderful feeling when you find the right grave - as if someone has led you there and said "this is all yours"

I recently visited a very old graveyard and I just knew which grave I wanted - of course it was totally covered in ivy - 6ft high!!. I attacked it for 3 hours (OH just didn't want to know  ::) ) but I KNEW I was meant to read it.

After finally seeing it uncovered, I could feel my 3 x great grandfather telling me all about the family - the grave/vault had 4 generations in it - all my family  :'( . The inscription looked like someone was sending me a message (OK I know I sound weird  ::) )

A wonderful, sad and happy and emotional experience

Di

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: KPM on Wednesday 15 August 07 16:36 BST (UK)

Hi Everyone and thanks for your replies - more proof that if I am going mad I'm certainly not alone!

I was actually talking to my relatives whilst walking around looking for their graves saying 'Where are you Rebecca' and 'just give me a clue' I can't say I immediately stumbled upon their graves but I did find them eventually.

One particular branch of the family have proved a nightmare from the start.  Different spelling of names, disappearing for years on end only to turn up in the most unlikely places etc and of course they had to be the hardest grave to find.  I did have a plot number but the cemetery was so huge it was hard to know if it was the right one.  This was the grave that was sunk into the ground and my poor hubby had to dig up :D  When their names appeared under all the earth I felt really triumphant as if they hadn't beaten me that time - probably just spent too long in the sun :D

Anne-Marie

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: scottcharles on Wednesday 15 August 07 16:53 BST (UK)

That must have been really satisfying seeing it all cleared up though.
Unfortunately, one whole generation of a branch of my family has been cremated without proper memorial plaques - it seems it became fashionable at one point.

It's not very far up that tree, but it is disheartening not having somewhere to visit them :(

Still working on how I'm going to figure out where everyone is buried and then visit them. I'm in London and my family (those discovered so far) come from all over the shop: Devon, Wiltshire, Somerset, Hampshire, Kent, Yorkshire, Scotland... you name it, it's in there!

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: Beth86 on Wednesday 15 August 07 17:48 BST (UK)

Today I am able to say I know exactly how you feel.

I went to my great-grandparents grave.

They are buried about 30 minutes walk away from my house and I haven't been to see them for years and years.  I think I may have been a baby whe my parents took me!

We bought some flowers and headed off to find the grave.  I assumed their grave was going to be like half of them, unkempt and overgrown, and the inscription barely legible, or maybe no headstone.
But we looked and looked and then they appeared.

In loving memory of
Edward Evans
died 8th January 1940 aged 46
and
Maud
died 12th December 1985 aged 92
and also of their daughter
GRACE
died in infancy
Together and resting in peace.

I burst into tears, two of the people I've been talking about for months, one who's proving very elusive and the other I feel like I've known forever. and grown up with her family, their names were in front of me.  It was incredible.  My mum took my son away for me to have a few 'quiet moments'.

The funniest thing though, was my 2 year old trying to put flowers on the graves next to them!

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: KPM on Wednesday 15 August 07 18:00 BST (UK)

I know exactly how you felt Beth - its a really emotional experience and that final connection after all the papers and pictures etc.

Anne-Marie

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: mike175 on Wednesday 15 August 07 18:15 BST (UK)

Hi Anne-Marie ,

I don't think you've lost the plot. I haven't even started on the graveyards yet, but I had a similar experience earlier this year.

I was reading an ancestor's will which mentioned "my chest of tools" (he was a carpenter), when I suddenly remembered some old tools that my father used to have . . . obviously the very same tools  ::)

So I went to visit my mum and found them, only to find the name engraved on one of them was not right . . . but it was the name of my gt.grandfather who was a shipwright . . . and I was holding the plane he had used 150 years ago . . . . talk about goosebumps . . .  ;)

Mike.

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: KPM on Wednesday 15 August 07 18:36 BST (UK)

Hi Mike

That must have been quite a feeling - I can understand the goosebumps.  You can almost feel them when you imagine your hands are touching the same thing that theirs did all those years ago.

Thats how I felt at the grave side - imaging I was standing in the same spot their mourners must have stood all those years ago.

Anne-Marie

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: stoney on Wednesday 15 August 07 19:43 BST (UK)

I agree with all that's been said about finally "meeting" up with your ancestors.

But how's this for kooky - imagine when a stranger rings you up and starts telling you things about your own mother!  :o

I was put in touch with a gentleman who turned out to be my mother's first cousin - I sent a tentative letter to his address expaining who I was and asking if he had any information about the family. I didn't really expect to hear anything but a couple of days later he rang me, most excited to have found someone in the family equally interested in genealogy as himself!

Well, we were on the phone for ages, him telling me anecdotes about my mother as a young girl and confirming what I had thought to be just family rumours. People I had just heard of as names in family discussions took on a whole new lease of life as he explained how they fitted into the grand scheme of things. It was most bizarre, hearing my family's names being bandied about by a "stranger"! But he had the family "dry wit" which seems to have infected all the generations!

We met up in Carlisle and he showed me and my daughter all around the family haunts, who had lived where etc. Finally he presented me with a hand-drawn copy of the family tree he had compiled together with his father (my paternal grandfather's elder brother).

A couple of years ago I "bumped" into someone else on a genealogy message board and discovered we were very closely related (her husband's grandfather and mine were brothers) and we were able to fill in gaps in our respective family trees. When we met in the flesh, it was as if we had always known each other - and yes, the family "wit" was alive and kicking, as we cracked jokes with each other.

I think there must  be a tie stronger even than blood, which enables us to connect with those long since departed and those we have yet to meet!

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: scottcharles on Wednesday 15 August 07 20:28 BST (UK)

That sounds really great, I hope to be able to do something similar one day!

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: Lydart on Wednesday 15 August 07 22:08 BST (UK)

I know what you mean about the 'weird' feeling ... I had it when I finally found the thatched tied cottage my gr. grandparents had lived in, in rural Dorset ... and how's this for weird ?  My daughters best friend from school in Hereford had lived in the very same house with her husband when he worked for a while for the same estate my gr. grandparents had worked for in the 1840's !

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: KPM on Wednesday 15 August 07 22:15 BST (UK)

We moved into the village where we now live, about 8 years ago, just before I started tracing my family history.  About a year into the tree one branch all pop up living in the very village we live in.  Although the houses are new, the land they were built on was probably the same land my ancestor's house was built on. :o :o  I had never even heard of this place until we saw the house in the estate agents window!!!!

AM

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: MarieC on Thursday 16 August 07 11:35 BST (UK)

I too know what you mean.  I spent quite a while trying to find a ggrandfather's grave in a very remote, sparsely settled part of Queensland.  When I did find it, and I and two cousins travelled a long way to visit it, everything seemed to be made very easy for us on the trip, our way was smoothed.  When we reached the lonely bush grave, I had the strong sensation that the old man was very pleased that we had made the effort to come and visit him!

I took some earth from his grave to mix into his wife's grave only a couple of kilometres from where I live.  OK, OK, I'm as mad as a cut snake, I admit it!  ;D

MarieC

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: KPM on Thursday 16 August 07 12:40 BST (UK)

I don't think you're mad at all Marie - I think that was a lovely gesture :)

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: stoney on Thursday 16 August 07 20:44 BST (UK)

Quote from: MarieC on Thursday 16 August 07 11:35 BST (UK)

I took some earth from his grave to mix into his wife's grave only a couple of kilometres from where I live.  OK, OK, I'm as mad as a cut snake, I admit it!  ;D

MarieC

I don't think that's mad at all - almost beautiful, in trying to reunite them in some small way!  I think you'd have to be pretty soul-less to think otherwise. What a lovely gesture on your part1  :)

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: MarieC on Friday 17 August 07 09:55 BST (UK)

Thanks, KPM and Stoney!  :)

A cousin and I restored the family grave where said wife and her mother (who was a fearsome old family matriarch!  ::) 8) ) are buried.  As we completed our work, I had this sense of semi-regal approval.  The old matriarch was pleased that we had tidied up her grave and restored it to something she could be proud of!!!  ::) ::) ::)

MarieC

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: poppysmum on Sunday 19 August 07 19:18 BST (UK)

hi KPM

when i read your post about the graves i had to laugh.  i made my husband pull out a half buried grave.  i had to get him to hold it up while i read what was written!  he didn't find it very funny

sometimes when i have been in a graveyard and i find the grave i am looking for i feel as though someone has shown me.  especially once when i was just about to give up and there it was staring at me

there have been other times when i fel as though someone has given me a gentle shove n the right direction.

caroline

Title: Re: Anyone else experienced this?
Post by: KPM on Sunday 19 August 07 19:29 BST (UK)

Hi Caroline
What our hubby's will do for a quiet life eh? ;D ;D  I did suggest we took a little shovel but he thought I was joking!!

I felt very 'in touch' with my dead relatives that day and so did my mum.  It took us ages to find her grandmother's grave and at one time mum said 'Nanna's angry with us and won't show is where she is'  (we uncovered a bit of a juicy story a while back which my gr grandmother probably wouldn't have been too pleased about!) but we found her in the end - mum thinks she just wanted to make us suffer a bit ::)

I took a photograph of my great grandparents grave and today found a photo which was taken of the grave in 1925  It was so sad to compare the two.  Today's grave looks very sorry for itself :(

Anne-Marie