I shall begin with the beginning as far as I am concerned. My interest in family history was stirred at a relatively early age. I was only nearing my 27th birthday when all of my mother's brothers, all Draffan's, received a letter from George Draffen of Newington, in March, 1960 asking for family details and at the same time telling what he had discovered going back to the first Draffan, a witness at Kelso Abbey between 1160 and 1189. This was mind blowing at the time for most family knowledge was what remained in the mind after some aunt or uncle would bring up a name from their past.
Yet I did little once the initial interest had waned thinking as most people did then that there was little chance of discovering much more. Everything really kicked off around 1976 when having joined a travel agency in a Melbourne suburb the owner, found through the British High Commission that there was a crying need for a document service. So many people had lost all of their birth and marriage certificates without which they couldn't claim a pension, or travel overseas. So we lined up researchers in London and Edinburgh and that naturally led to our own family research.
It wasn't until 1987 that I sensed there was more to it all than just finding out who our great grandparents had been and where they lived etc. My daughter talked me into seeing a medium who had astonished herself. Though I always had believed there was something else and had an open mind, I didn't feel convinced enough to take that step. But she persisted and so I made an appointment. Tanya's open words were that she knew immediately that I would be a good subject as 'they' were all around me. Then came the first inkling that Tanya was the real thing for her next statement was that I had let my interest in family history wane and that it was most important that I get back to it and write about it. She wouldn't allow any interjection and if I tried to put in a word she stopped me with a reprimand saying that I could not tell her anything, but only answer 'Yes' or 'No' if she needed to know that what she could 'see' was on the right track.
Tanya then went on to see that she could see some place in England and a name something like 'Beckwirth' was an important clue. There is a very odd thing when one has a reading. Medium's call it 'Psychic Amnesia'. We forget names and places that we know very well and I didn't connect it at the time to the one place I had been searching, namely 'Babworth' near East Retford where my grandmother was born.
The rest of that reading was just incredible, so much so that I found myself questioning my daughter, and asking her just what she had told Tanya. I knew in my own heart that Fiona had kept personal details to herself, yet what I was told was just impossible for any other living person aside from perhaps my son, to have known. I never sought another reading until about ten years later when I first noticed the '33' phenomena. All Tanya could tell me then was that they were trying to get my attention. But it was what else she told me in 1997 that was utterly astounding. We had only just moved into a new house my second wife, Ede, and myself had had built upon retiring. It was just everything one could ever want and in an idyllic position close to the Hastings Marina, shops to one side, and the coastal board walk through wetlands and natural settings right next door. There was no way we would leave that heavenly home with a fantastic cathedral ceiling in the large family room cum kitchen or the great spa with air and water jets. But Tanya insisted we would move.
I protested saying that she was seeing the move we had just made. Tanya was adamant that it was to be in the near future and then went on to describe a trellis fence right across the front garden. My heart sank like a load of cement as I had just put that trellis fence up. Tanya lived some 60 kilometres away so could never had seen it and in fact had no idea where we lived. She then added that it wouldn't be until climbers had grown up and all over the trellis.
Three years later something happened that compelled us to sell up and move to Cairns, for Ede to be near her daughter.
My main point here though is that I now accepted that there was more to life than what we think is the only reality, and that our make up and family connections are a big part of it all. After all the Willis case which I have outlined in the linked thread above, was some evidence of that importance.
