A feeling of sadness

[BettyofKent]

This week I received the death certificate of a one day old baby (a premature birth) The baby's father, my great-great uncle was only twenty when he died.
Is it daft to grieve for something that happened a long time ago, to people I have never met & whose names I didn't even know until recently?

Betty

[meles]

I have found two sisters of my father never knew about, and an aunt and uncle he was not aware of - all dead within a week of birth.

I was saddened by the discoveries.

meles

[lcsnor]

I think it's perfectly normal to be moved.  These were real people who lived often in a harsh world and they have a family connection. I think we also relate what happened to them to what it may have been like for us and our familiels if we had lived then. When I think how I can sob at an entirely fictional movie it's inevitable that I will be saddened by these kinds of losses. 

[patrish]

I couldn't agree more, I  feel exactly the same way about some of my ancestors deaths.

[Carrie Ann]

Recently I found the death of my g,g,grandmother`s son by her second marriage.
I have been looking for him for ages as he disappears from the Census,suddenly his death appears on FreeBMD. Sent off for the certificate .Crushed between buffers aged 18. I could have wept on her behalf.What a dreadful shock for her . OK it happened over a hundred years ago  but yes,it affects me too.

Carrie Ann.

[ali607]

i completely agree - i saw three stone in my village graveyard - in the shape of teddybears  - they were for children all under 10 and they all died within 3 month of each other....strange but true - that made me extremely sad esp as there was a picture of them on the stone...i stood there at this strangers grave and tears welled. Such a waste of a life.
i think doing family research makes you a much more well rounded person in that you appreciate life more - you value it and you make the most of every day...well its certainly had that effect on me. I look at my ancestors - esp the ones just teo three generations back and try to imagine how there spoke and what things they liked etc and that makes me sad alone - just cos i didnt know them and i wish id have had the chance....it makes me want to record stuff about my family's life so that at least the chain of 'out of sight out of mind' when your ancestors die is broken.
i dont think its silly at all - its just appreciating where you come from really
Alison

[pete edwards]

Makes you wonder how well of us lot are,

Taken from the records of Kinlet,Shropshire,

01 Mar 1812 John Evans, aged 14, Wash-house lodge, labr. in hall garden. This is the 3d. person who has died out of the same family in 6 mths. They are now all gone.

Sadly entries like these seem to be all to common in the old days,

Pete.

[madammagician]

betty i agree with everyone else.Although you have never met these people they are still have a connection to you as you research their lives.I was so upset when i started reasearching my paternal grandfather,I found his birth cert very easily but had a shock when it said mother deceased!His mother died 4 days after giving birth to him and he was farmed out to relatives until he was 7yrs old.

[BettyofKent]

Hi madammagician  & welcome.
I knew my grandmother died just after giving birth, but I wasn't sure of the details. To look at the certificate & see that she died age 36 of heart failure & exhaustion a week after giving birth to my uncle made me cry.
My dad was four years old & he saw her die, he never forgot it.
Their father found foster parents to care for the two boys while he worked. They were a lovely couple & it was at their grandson's wedding where I met the man I married.
My dad was about 10 when his father remarried, the stepmother was a (word I'm not allowed to use) but that's another story.

Betty